For the first time in over a century, a living American president's face has been pressed into coin — a small, circular departure from a tradition that long held such honors should wait for history's verdict. In September 2026, the US Mint released a commemorative dollar bearing Donald Trump's portrait, timed to the nation's 250th anniversary and sold out within hours. The move navigates a narrow legal corridor, resting on the distinction between a coin's obverse and reverse, yet the symbolic weight of a sitting president's likeness entering everyday commerce is anything but technical. It is a