The US Mint is currently selling the coins featuring Sarah Polk, Margaret Taylor, Abigail Fillmore, and Jane Pierce. These coins originally went on sale at various times during the past year, with the most recent being the Jane Pierce First Spouse Gold Coin, on sale from June 3, 2010. This coin had debuted with prices of $779 for proof coins and $766 for uncirculated coins. Price for all coins were adjusted to $754 and $741 for each version, respectively.

Following the price decline, weekly sales of the coins jumped, showing that collectors of this series are responsive to price changes and perhaps time purchases to take advantage of anticipated pricing updates.

The obverse of the coin features a portrait of the First Lady designed by Donna Weaver. The reverse of the coin, also designed by Weaver, features a scene of Jane Pierce sitting in the visitor’s gallery of the Old Senate Chamber in the U.S. Capitol Building. Here, she was known to sit and listen to the debates on slavery.

The Jane Pierce First Spouse Coins carry a maximum mintage of 15,000 coins across the proof and uncirculated versions. This is a step down from the maximum levels set in prior years, but probably still not an attainable level. The most recent coins of the series that went off-sale had combined sales of less than 9,000 coins.

Pricing for the coins is set at $779 for proof and $766 for uncirculated coins. This is the highest starting level for any issue of the series to date.

In general, First Spouse Gold Coins remain available for sale until the maximum authorized mintage has been sold or approximately one year, whichever occurs first.

The reduced mintage level is a result of the shift in popularity of the series. Back in 2007, when the first coins were released, the maximum mintage established at 40,000 seemed like it might be too small. The issues for Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, and Thomas Jefferson’s Liberty sold out in only one day. The Jefferson’s Liberty issue even sold out despite an ordering limit of just one per household. At this point, there was talk about potentially raising the maximum in future years.

The next two years of the series saw sentiment swing to the opposite direction. Each release for 2008 had total coins sold in the approximate range of 11,000 to 12,000. Sales of 2009 coins began in a similar trend, suggesting a base level of demand around this range. After the last two years, reconsideration of the maximum seemed appropriate.

The 2010 releases will feature Abigail Fillmore, Jane Pierce, James Buchanan’s Liberty, and Mary Todd Lincoln. The first three coins will have a maximum mintage of 15,000 for each release. The final coin featuring Mary Todd Lincoln will have a maximum mintage of 20,000, reflecting the expected greater popularity of the coin.

The 2010 First Spouse Gold Coins will certainly bring some attention back to the series due to the reduced maximums and expected popularity of the Mary Todd Lincoln coin.

The obverse of the coin features a portrait of First Lady Abigail Fillmore with the order of the Presidency “13th” the and dates she was First Lady “1850 -1853″. The reverse features her shelving books in the library. She had established a library in the White House. The obverse is designed by Phebe Hemphill, with Susan Gable designing the reverse.

As a shift in policy from the prior releases, the United States Mint has announced a maximum mintage of only 15,000 coins across the proof and unicrculated versions available. All prior issues of the series released from 2007 to 2009 carried maximum mintages of 40,000 coins. The first three coins had sold this maximum amount, while sales dipped for the subsequent issues.

The newly established maximum is about 20% above the typical level of sales, which had been reached during the one year sales period for the issues released during 2008. By providing a lower number, will this encourage more collectors to buy into the series, thus reviving some of its early excitement?

All of the 2009 releases still remain on sale. Current sales data suggests that this year will find a slightly lower base of demand. The uncirculated issues seem to be lining up for final sales of less than 4,000 for uncirculated issues and lower than 7,000 for proof coins. All issues still remain available for sale, so this can certainly change.

Here is the latest sales data for 2009 releases as of February 21, 2010. View all First Spouse Coin mintages.

The line art designs released by the United States Mint are shown below for each of the four releases:

2010 Abigail Fillmore First Spouse Gold Coin

This coin features a portrait of Abigail Fillmore and a scene of her putting books on a shelf in the White House library, which she established with an appropriation granted by Congress. The obverse was designed by Phebe Hemphill and the reverse was designed by Susan Gamble.

2010 Jane Pierce First Spouse Gold Coin

The Jane Pierce coin features her portrait on the obverse and a scene of her watching Senate debates on the reverse. She is shown within the visitor’s gallery of the Old Senate Chamber in the US Capitol Building where she was known to have listened to the debates about slavery. The coin was designed by Donna Weaver.

2010 James Buchanan’s Liberty First Spouse Gold Coin

Because James Buchanan served as President without a spouse, an image emblematic of Liberty is used for the obverse. The design is a reproduction of Christian Gobrecht’s Liberty Head Gold Quarter Eagle with added inscriptions. The reverse of the coin depicts a scene from James Buchanan’s youth, when he worked as a bookkeeper in the family country store. The reverse was designed by David Westwood.

2010 Mary Todd Lincoln First Spouse Gold Coin

The Mary Todd Lincoln coin will be the last releaes of the year and a possible focus for many collectors. The obverse features her portrait and the reverse depicts her visiting wounded Civil War soldiers to bring them books and flowers. The obverse was designed by Phebe Hemphill and the reverse was designed by Joel Iskowitz.

Last year, the US Mint offered a limited number of gold coins for collectors, which potentially helped support interest in the First Spouse Gold Coin series. So far the schedule for 2010 coins does not include any gold coins besides the four releases of the First Spouse series. The status of the collectible Gold Buffalo and Gold Eagle offerings has not been confirmed.

The obverse of the coin features a portrait of Margaret Taylor and the reverse is a scene of her bandaging a wounded soldier during the Seminole War. Prior to her husband’s Presidency, she had followed him during his military career to many outpost and hardship locations.

When the coins were released they were priced at $754 for the proof vesion and $741 for the uncirculated version. This was the highest starting price ever for a coin of the First Spouse Gold Coin series. After the recent pull back in the price of gold, the prices have been reduced to $729 and $716.

So far, the US Mint has recorded sales of 2,249 of the proof version and 1,248 of the uncirculated version for the Margaret Taylor First Spouse Gold Coin. This is running slightly below the pace of sales for prevoius releases.

The table below presents the mintage figures for the First Spouse Gold coins release so far. The coins from Martha Washington to Andrew Jackson’s Liberty are no longer available for sale directly from the US Mint. The coins from Martin Van Buren’s Liberty onward remain available for sale so mintages will continue to rise.

The coin series began with much fanfare, selling out the first three issues completely. Following the initial buzz, sales declined and fell into a new range. The releases for 2008 all have mintages within the 4,000 range for uncirculated coins and 7,000 range for proof coins.

As customary with US Mint product releases, the proof version of each coin has outsold the uncirculated version. The margin is not as wide as experienced for some recent commemorative coins where the proof version has sold more than double the uncirculated version.

Will the low mintages of some coins lead to higher secondary market prices? It has been a question on the minds of collectors of the series for some time. On the one hand, low mintage coins usually attract a premium over time. On the other hand, it seems that nearly all First Spouse Gold coins will have low mintages compared to commemorative coins, negating some of the allure.

The Sarah Polk First Spouse Gold Coin features her portrait on the obverse and a scene of her acting as her husband’s personal secretary in the White House. During her life, she devoted much of her time to furthering her husband’s politicial career. The obverse and reverse were designed and engraved by Phebe Hemphill.

Sarah Polk served as First Spouse for the 11th Presidency from 1845 to 1849.

The coins will be available in both proof and uncirculated versions, both produced at the West Point Mint. The US Mint will establish prices for the coins on Thursday based on the average London Fix price of gold for the prior week.

This marks the eleventh release of the series. Now in its third year, the series has lost many of the early eager buyers as the price of gold and the price of the coins have escalated. In the long term, this may work to the benefit of continued collectors of the series. When collectors grew tired of modern commemorative coins in the mid and late 1990’s, mintages declined to low levels, which eventually supported big premiums for the once unpopular releases.

For the first time in a while, one of the First Spouse Gold Coins has unexpectedly sold out at the United States Mint. For the past several coins, they have been systematically taken off sale as newer coins are released. The last coins that “sold out” were the first three issues where the entire authorized mintage of 40,000 coins had been sold.

Andrew Jackson’s Liberty First Spouse Coin, proof version was sold out earlier in the week. The sell out comes several weeks before the next coin release which will feature Sarah Polk. Also the uncirculated version of the coin remains available for sale.

Presumably, the US Mint made their final production run for the proof coin and underestimated how many would be needed to last until the planned end of sales. As a result, once their remaining inventory was sold, the coins had to be taken off sale.

The last available statistics indicate that 7,806 of the Andrew Jackson’s Liberty Gold Proof Coins were sold.