Sacagawea was a native to the North American continent, and lived in the early 1800's. Her husband was Toussaint Charbonneau, a native of France. He was selected to be part of the Lewis and Clark journey largely due to the presence of his bride. She was able to converse with the natives of the groups that lay along their path. Sacagawea's role in speaking with the natives while the mission charted sections of the country has secured her a place in history.

The American gold dollar coin minted in 2000 immortalized this brave and fearless woman. It was hoped that these dollars would eventually eliminate the paper one dollar bill, but that didn't occur. Because of this, the Sacagawea dollar coins have not been circulated as hoped and 2003 will be the last year of minting. A new edition of his coin has been approved by congress and will be minted in 2009.

Currently, the number of Sacagawea dollar coins in circulation is only about one billion. About 250 million are in reserve with the US reserve. The United States Postal Service uses these to make change through stamp vending machines. Gambling casinos also use them in slot machines, and subway and bus systems dispense them, too.

Some coin dealers now carry genuine Sacagawea dollar coins that bear "edge lettering" with unusual phrases like "Darwin Rules" and "In God We Lust". Though coin dealers admit that the edge lettering was not applied at the US Mint when the coins were made, people who trade dollar coins as a hobby are often interested in these unique spoof coins.

Some collectors are highly enthusiastic about the Sacagawea dollar coin; you can even find message boards and blogs about this hard-to-find coin. Sacagawea coin fans are annoyed by the shortage of vending machines that will accept the coins and frustrated that so few vending machine companies are interested in adapting their machines to take dollar coins. These fans build collections of the coins with examples of every year minted, and try to get more of them into circulation by collecting them from Post Office machines and spending them.

The reissue of this golden coin schedule for 2009 could ignite new interest and use by the average consumer. Paper dollars are not a popular investment because they tend to fade and even tear as they age. By contrast, you can still find pennies circulating that were issued back in the 1930's, which shows the durability of metal coins. It is possible that the new Sacagawea coin might just change our paper based currency system once and for all.