All you wanted to know about how the Commemorative program works...

BackroadJunkie

The Congressional Research Service has issued a report on the Commemorative program. Whether this leads to an overhaul is debatable. (Kudos to Coin World for pointing me to these reports.)

However, if you want to learn about the Commemorative program as it exists (and did exist), they're excellent reads.

Commemorative Coins: An Overview

Commemorative Coins: Background, Legislative Process, and Issues for Congress

The "Concluding Observations" in the latter report does suggest that Congress take a closer look at the subjects of commens to avoid failures.

To potentially maximize the appeal and sale of commemorative coins to support designated recipient organizations, Congress might consider whether the people, places, events, or institutions to be commemorated have a broad appeal and whether design elements might be specified that would make the coin more appealing to the general public. For example, the 1986 Statue of Liberty commemorative coin (shown in Figure 2) sold over 15 million units, while other coins have sold as few as approximately 40,000.

That is to say, Girl Scouts, Civil Rights, etc...

ricko

Thanks for the links. I agree about evaluating the appeal of commemoratives...seems as if many are politically justified than of major significance or interest. Cheers, RickO