In a surprise decision, the U.S. Mint has decided against using the 1794 Flowing Hair dollar designs for its American Liberty program, but Mint officials are still looking to use the designs in a different capacity.

The Mint initially planned to employ the 1794 dollar designs for an American Liberty silver medal in 2024 and gold dollar in 2025, but is now planning to use the designs to celebrate the 230th anniversary of the Flowing Hair dollar series in 2024 — a program separate from the American Liberty series. Mint officials cited objections from the design review panels for the decision to withdraw the 1794 designs from the next American Liberty program.

“The Mint was looking at using the 1794 Flowing Hair dollar design as part of the American Liberty program,” Mint spokesman Michael White confirmed to Coin World Oct. 30. “However, the CCAC [Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee] felt, given the program’s focus on modern depictions of Liberty, that using a historic design for the American Liberty program was inadvisable. Hence their declining to deliberate on the topic at last week’s session [Oct. 24 and 25].

“We will be bringing the Flowing Hair dollar designs back to the federal advisory committees next month. Not only was this the request of the CFA [Commission of Fine Arts], but it will allow us to discuss the prospect of using the Flowing Hair Dollar design with the CCAC (just not under the umbrella of the American Liberty program).”

Both a 2024 silver medal and a 2025 gold coin bearing U.S. Mint Chief Engraver Robert Scot’s original obverse and reverse designs for the 1794 Flowing Hair silver dollar had been originally contemplated for American Liberty series releases. When the preliminary 2024 Mint numismatic products schedule was released, the issue date for the gold coin, originally planned for 2025 release according to Mint officials, had been moved to the fall of 2024.

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