The U.S. Mint cares about the opinions of average collectors. I believe it. The real question is do you believe that?

More proof for my opinion arrived late Wednesday afternoon when I received an e-mail from the U.S. Mint asking if Numismatic News would mind sharing the results of a recent online poll conducted here at www.numismaticnews.net asking whether the dollar coin should be abolished.

I requested the full data for submission to the Mint yesterday and off it went. We had published the results of the online poll on Page 4 of the May 22 issue, but that just provided percentages.

What probably got the Mint’s attention and spurred the urge to explore further was the fact that 49 percent of the respondents said that the dollar coin should be struck but the dollar bill should be abolished. This flies in the face of national polls done over the years and would constitute an earthquake shift in opinion were it true.

The trouble with online polls is that they do not use scientific sampling technique to assue that they are an accurate reflection of the broad population.

An online poll is just that, the opinions of the very specific group of people who choose to respond to it..

What does that tell me? It tells me that the Mint does care about collector opinion and wants to gather the broadest data possible. Will it change current Mint policy governing the dollar coin? Not likely anytime soon, but who knows?

If collectors like you get in the habit of participating in online polls, you know that whatever your opinion is will be picked up by the U.S. Mint. That’s a good thing to know. Your opinion matters and your voice is heard.