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IT'S A GOLD RUSH! Store customers flip for Sacagawea coins By Dani Dodge of the Mail Tribune Wendie Nicovich of Medford holds one of the new dollar coins she got Saturday. The biggest issue for 77-year-old Dorthy Morrison wasn't whether to get a newly minted dollar coin from Wal-Mart Saturday, but what she would buy so she wouldn't go through the checkout empty-handed. She and her husband, Samuel, finally decided on a bouquet of blue daisies and nail polish remover. Both items were within 20 feet of the register. "I want to get one of the coins for each of my kids, plus one for me," she explained. "It's better than the Susan B. Anthonys, because those looked like quarters." The new gold-colored coins were officially introduced into circulation by the U.S. Mint Saturday at 29,000 Wal-Mart stores and Sam's Clubs across the nation. Locally, they were available at Wal-Mart stores in Medford, Talent and Grants Pass. Customers were required to make a purchase and receive the coins in their change. The stores started giving them out as change for those who asked on Thursday. And according to one cashier, about every other person who has gone through the register since then has asked for them. "Business has really picked up," said Justin Martin, a store manager at Medford's Wal-Mart. "People are coming in to pick up something, just so they can get the gold coins." By noon Saturday, 6,000 or so had already gone out the door that day alone, Martin said. He expected the store to run out of coins before the night was over. He said business has been similarly brisk at other Wal-Marts. "(The dollar coins) are really doing well," he said. "Better than anyone would have expected." The coins will be introduced into general circulation in March, Martin said. The coins bear the image of Sacagawea, the 14-year-old American Indian girl who helped guide Lewis and Clark to Oregon in the early 1800s. The coin's predecessor, the Susan B. Anthony dollar, was often confused with the quarter. But the Sacagawea coin is gold in color and slightly larger than a quarter. "I think the best thing they did was make it a different color," Wendie Nicovich said after she picked up a handful of the coins Saturday. She and her husband were on their routine Saturday morning shopping foray that included stops at the auto parts store, the drug store and Wal-Mart when they saw the sign at the check-out advertising the coins. They picked up one for each of their three children and a few more for themselves. "It's a sign of the times," Steve Nicovich said. "Machines won't take wrinkled dollar bills." The coins seemed to delight both young and old. Cody and Jaime Faber, 8 and 6 respectively, admired the shiny tokens with the same enthusiasm as looking at new Pokemon cards. "They're neat," Cody said. "They're big and it has an eagle," said Jaime. Their mother, Jeanette Faber, went to Wal-Mart all the way from Sams Valley Saturday to pick up a few coins before they were all gone. Even the boy's grandmother, Alma Palmer, was along for the shopping jaunt. "I save all the quarters for them, too," Palmer said of her growing collection of quarters bearing symbols of each state of the union. As Morrison walked out of Wal-Mart with her blue bouquet, her nail polish and her 10 dollar coins, she had a hard time explaining why it was so important for her to get her hands on the Sacagawea dollars. "It's just something different," she said. "It's just something you do. I guess it's because you can say you have it." Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA