The United States Mint will begin sales of the 2021 Christa McAuliffe commemorative coin, both in Proof and Uncirculated finishes, later today. Sales will begin at their normal time of Noon Eastern, 9:00 AM Pacific on the Mint’s site. News of the coins going on sale today broke over the past weekend when the Mint updated its production schedule for 2021.
Traditionally, the Mint releases commemorative coins towards the middle of the year and here at USCoinNews.com, the assumption was that trend would continue. It would seem however that the Mint has already produced the 350,000 Proof and 350,000 Uncirculated specimens of the coin and are ready to start sales. It was only last week that the Mint updated its site with the official images of the coin.
The Proof variant of the commemorative will be priced at $74.00 while the Uncirculated version will be slightly less at $69.00. For both coins there are no household limits in place for purchases.
The coin commemoratives the Mrs. McAuliffe, the first selected educator in the Teacher in Space Program in the 1980s. She, along with six other astronauts were killed during the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger STS-51L mission on January 28, 1986.
The Act authorizing the coin was signed by Former President Trump on October 9, 2019, just eight days after the law passed in the Senate on October 1, 2019.