U.S. releases new one dollar "presidential coin"

Steven Edenbo (R), dressed as former U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, hands out newly minted dollar coins in front of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington Aug. 15, 2007. The U.S. Mint unveiled a coin featuring the image of Jefferson as part of their presidential coin program (Xinhua/Reuteres Photo)
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    WASHINGTON, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Mint on Wednesday released a new one dollar coin featuring former President Thomas Jefferson.

    The coin is the third in the mint's "Historic Change" series which honors the United States Presidents in the order in which they served.

    Four new coins will be released every year.

    All the "presidential coins" has an image of the Statue of Liberty on the tails side.

    No living President, former or current, will be honored on the "presidential coin."

    The U.S. Mint hopes the coin series will help Americans to refresh their memories of the nation's founding fathers.

    A July Gallup poll shows only 30 percent of the Americans could name Thomas Jefferson as the nation's third president and only 7 percent could name the first four presidents -- Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison -- in the correct order.

    Mint Director Edmund Moy believes the new dollar coin will improve that situation.

    For example, he said, the Mint's 50-state quarter program, the most popular coin series in history, has gotten an estimated 147 million people involved in collecting the quarters that are honoring the states in the order they were admitted to the country.