Is there gold in them thar dollars?

Is the federal government selling gold for a dollar? No, but that's the rumor one lawmaker feared might gain momentum when the U.S. Mint marketed its new Sacagawea coin as the "golden dollar."

Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, asked the General Accounting Office to investigate the Mint's promotion of the new coins to see if the public would think there's actual gold in them.

In March, the Mint launched a six-month nationwide advertising campaign to promote the golden dollar. It includes national broadcast, print, radio, transit and Internet advertising and features George Washington as spokesman for the coin. The campaign includes more than 1,600 spots, and will air over 11 weeks.

It turned out Gramm had little to worry about. According to a GAO survey, only 13 percent of adults familiar with the ads thought the coins were made of gold. Another 27 percent said they did not know or were not sure. Sixty-one percent said they did not believe the coins contained real gold.

Another 12 percent of adults who had never seen or heard the Mint advertising, but were told that the coin was called the golden dollar, believed that it contained gold. Seventy-one percent of those who had not seen the golden dollar ads didn't think the coin contained real gold.

GAO contracted with a national market research firm to complete the study, "New Dollar Coin, Public Perception of Advertising" (GGD-00-92). A sample of 1,012 adults were surveyed, representing about 196 million adults.

The agency chose to market the new coin as the "Golden Dollar" because its name, "Sacagawea" was hard to pronounce and had been mispronounced on television already, Mint Director Philip Diehl told GAO in March. According to Diehl, the term "golden" refers to color, not metal content, as evidenced by names such as the Golden Gate Bridge, or the Golden Rule, the report said.

Diehl felt confident that the public would realize a coin worth one dollar would not contain real gold, GAO reported.

Overall, 57 percent of surveyed adults had seen or heard the golden dollar ads, while 39 percent had not. The other 4 percent weren't sure if they had seen the ads or not.

Mint officials reviewed the GAO report and said they were pleased with its findings. The Mint has conducted its own research since the ads appeared and found that focus groups think the golden dollar ads are clever and appealing.

According to the Mint, at least 500 million golden dollars will be in circulation at the end of this month, matching in only 14 weeks the total demand for the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin in its first 14 years.