GOLD AMERICAN BUFFALO 2023

The Presidential $1 Coin Act authorized the production of these 24-karat coins on December 22, 2005. The design for these coins resurrected the work of American sculptor James Earle Fraser for America’s five-cent coin, which popularly came to be known as the “Indian Head,” or “Buffalo Nickel.” It was introduced in 1913 and celebrates the American West with the noble Indian profile on the obverse and the buffalo on the reverse.

According to the U.S. Mint, the Native American depiction is a composite of three different individuals, with two of them identified by the artist before his death as Chief Iron Tail of the Lakota Sioux and Chief Two Moons of the Cheyenne. While there have been many who have said that they sat for Fraser, the artist could not recall the third person. It’s widely believed that Fraser used “Black Diamond,” a buffalo who lived in New York’s Zoological Gardens, as the model for the bison on the coin’s reverse.