Second set of presidential coins to debut

WASHINGTON - Coming soon on new presidential dollar coins - Old Hickory, Old Kinderhook, Old Man Eloquent, and the Last of the Cocked Hats.

The U.S. Mint, the maker of the nation's coins, is scheduled to introduce today the stately images of the next four presidents whose faces will appear on the front of the shiny gold-colored dollar coins next year.

James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren will be the additions to the presidential dollar coin series that started with George Washington in February.

Monroe, the nation's fifth president, was nicknamed the Last of the Cocked Hats - a reference to the hat worn by soldiers of the American Revolution. He will be the first of the 2008 presidential coins, with the Monroe dollar coin coming out Feb. 14.

Up next: Adams, the country's sixth president, who was nicknamed Old Man Eloquent because of his long speeches. The Adams coin will be put into circulation May 15.

The dollar coin bearing the likeness of Old Hickory, the moniker for seventh president Andrew Jackson because of his leadership in the War of 1812, will be rolled out Aug. 14. The Van Buren dollar coin, honoring the eighth president, will come out Nov. 13. One of Van Buren's nicknames was Old Kinderhook, a reference to his hometown in New York.

The Mint hopes the presidential series will breathe life into dollar coins, which have suffered from little use in the past. The Susan B. Anthony and the Sacagawea dollar coins flopped - failing to get into cash registers and people's pockets.

The presidential dollar series is modeled on the Mint's popular 50-state quarter program, which lured millions of Americans into becoming coin collectors.

Like the quarters, the dollar coins will feature changing designs - four new presidents each year in the order they served in office. The president's faces are on the front of the coins, while the backs feature the Statue of Liberty. Some of the lettering, including "In God We Trust," was moved to the edge of the coins.

Some people say they believe the dollar coins will not gain wide acceptance unless the government gets rid of the dollar bill.

One problem hobbling the use of dollar coins in the past was that they weren't widely accepted in vending machines and mass-transit systems around the country. To overcome such problems this time, the Mint is launching a pilot program in the Washington metropolitan area aimed at stimulating business and bank demand for the coins - and identifying and solving impediments to widespread use of the dollar coins.

More than 800 million presidential coins were put into circulation in 2007, the Mint said. Those first four coins carried the images of Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.