Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a new commemorative half-dollar coin honoring the nearly 3,000 lives lost on September 11, 2001, a tangible reminder as the nation approaches the 25th anniversary of the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil.
The coin, struck at the Philadelphia Mint, features the date of the attacks encircled by the words "NEVER FORGET." It is available for pre-order now on the U.S. Mint's website, with a window that closes September 25. Shipping is expected to begin December 3, Breitbart News reported.
Bessent framed the coin as a national promise kept:
"As we approach the 25th anniversary of September 11, we honor the memory of those we lost and the courage of those who risked their lives to save their fellow Americans. A quarter century later, our promise to the victims and their families remains the same: we will never forget."
Buyers can purchase the circulating-quality coins in 20-coin rolls for $40 or 100-coin bags for $100 through the Mint's online store. The coins carry the standard half-dollar denomination.
This is not the first time the Mint has marked the September 11 anniversary with a special issue. In 2011, for the 10th anniversary, it released a one-ounce silver September 11 National Medal featuring Lady Liberty holding a "Lamp of Remembrance" and the inscription "ALWAYS REMEMBER."
The new half dollar updates that tribute for a generation that may have been too young to remember the attacks firsthand, or was not yet born when Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked commercial aircraft and turned them into weapons on a clear Tuesday morning.
On that day, hijackers struck the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A third plane crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers fought back against the hijackers. Nearly 3,000 people died. The toll has only grown in the years since, as more than 600 FDNY rescue workers have died from exposure-related illnesses linked to the toxic debris at Ground Zero.
The 9/11 half dollar arrives just days after the Mint rolled out $1 coins bearing President Donald Trump's face to mark the nation's semiquincentennial, its 250th birthday. Those coins, designed by U.S. Mint Chief Engraver Joseph Menna from an official White House photograph, are sold in 25-coin rolls and 100-coin bags priced between $61 and $154.50, the New York Post reported.
A rare version of the Trump dollar carrying a special "July 4th" privy mark was randomly inserted into orders. Some 250,000 of those specially marked coins were struck at the Philadelphia Mint on Independence Day itself.
Bessent addressed the legal question around putting a living president on currency, noting that his mandates as Treasury Secretary require only that the currency say "In God We Trust" and that no image of a living person appear, a prohibition the administration navigated because the portrait sits on the obverse of a commemorative coin rather than standard circulating currency. Trump himself remarked that he was "honored" by the gesture, calling it "very cute they gave me a coin."
The broader 250th-anniversary coin program also includes a limited-edition uncirculated set that went on sale June 30, featuring semiquincentennial quarters, commemorative nickels and pennies marked "1776 ~ 2026," and coins from both the Philadelphia and Denver Mints. That set was capped at 300,000 units, priced at $124.50 each, the Washington Examiner reported.
The Mint's tribute lands at a moment when the 25th anniversary has become entangled in political controversy in New York City. Families of September 11 victims have petitioned to bar Mayor Mamdani from the Ground Zero ceremony, and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani has publicly called on Mamdani to stay away from the site.
Retired Port Authority officers have joined that push, demanding that both Mamdani and Governor Hochul stay away from the anniversary observance. Critics have pointed to Mamdani's record, including his decision to skip the 1993 World Trade Center bombing memorial, a fact that has drawn sharp scrutiny now that he seeks a prominent role at the 9/11 ceremony.
Against that backdrop, a coin stamped "NEVER FORGET" carries weight beyond its face value. The federal government, through the Mint, is making a straightforward statement: the nation's obligation to the dead and their families is not subject to political convenience.
Congress created the United States Mint in 1792. It became part of the Department of the Treasury in 1873. For more than two centuries, the Mint has served as the nation's sole manufacturer of legal tender coinage, and, at key moments, as a vehicle for collective memory.
The AP noted that the Trump commemorative dollar features "LIBERTY" and the dates "1776, 2026" on the front, with the Great Seal's bald eagle on the reverse. Bessent described that coin as honoring "the enduring legacy of liberty and a lasting symbol of patriotism."
The 9/11 half dollar serves a different but equally essential purpose. Liberty and patriotism are easy to celebrate in peacetime. Remembrance is harder. It asks Americans to sit with loss, to recall the cost of the freedoms the semiquincentennial coins celebrate.
Twenty-five years is long enough for memory to fade, for the political class to treat a sacred date as just another scheduling conflict. A half dollar in your hand, cold metal stamped with a date and a two-word command, makes forgetting a little more difficult.
