The Mint is asking for public comment on factors it should consider when it looks at the future of U.S. circulating coinage and its composition.
Now by public, it really doesn’t mean you and me, or any other collectors. It means vending machine companies, zinc producers, blank providers and armored car services and the like.
Why do I write that?
Well, for one thing, there is an express prohibition in the request saying that the Mint “is not soliciting suggestions or recommendations on specific metallic coinage materials.”
That pretty well rules out anything a collector might want to suggest.
That leaves the entities that do business with coins generally or with the Mint specifically. The vending industry doesn’t want any composition change that forces them to invest in new vending equipment.
The zinc industry doesn’t want that metal removed from use because it might cause a drop in profits in the mining industry – although with prices generally soaring, this is probably the only time when eliminating zinc from coinage would have the least impact on that industry.
You might be tempted to write something like “ignore all the vested interests,” but that won’t get you far. The 2010 Coin Modernization Act requiring this composition review was pretty much written with an in-built vending machine industry veto.
If anything will doom coins to complete disuse this is probably it.
But if you want to suggest something, anyway, you have until April 4 to make it.
E-mail coinmaterials@usmint.treas.gov.
Good luck.
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Michael J. Shutty Jr., PhD, author of “
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composition same with the royal canadian mint.
five cents – nickel clad steel
one cent – copper clad steel
ten cent – nickel clad steel
quarter – nickel clad steel
half dollar – nickel clad steel
discontinue one dollar bill
Revalue nickels to 20 cents and pennies to 5 cents. So simple, so cheap
only a federal bureaucrat could not see it!
Create a 21st century version of the Resumption Act to restore the value of our circulating coin and currency. It worked in the 1870s, why can’t it work today? Gold coins don’t have to be made, but why shouldn’t the dollar have parity with the official $42.22/tr.oz. value (or some other arbitrary value) of the metal? It took a hundred years to reach this point. Diligently applied, the damage could be undone in a generation. Economists say deflation is bad, really bad; but how could that be? Is anyone really gonna put off buying groceries, new clothes, or a replacement waterheater because it may be cheaper a year from now? Why must we all be passive acceptors of inflation?
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Thursday, March 10, 2011 12:55:56 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
composition same with the royal canadian mint.
five cents – nickel clad steel
one cent – copper clad steel
ten cent – nickel clad steel
quarter – nickel clad steel
half dollar – nickel clad steel
discontinue one dollar bill
jimmy dee
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Here is what the U.S. Min should do:
1 cent – copper-plated aluminum (like current South Korea 10 Won)
5 cent – copper-plated steel
10 cent – nickel-plated steel or stainless steel
25 cent – nickel-plated steel or stainless steel
50 cent – current size is too big in correspondence to face value. Ideal coin should be the following: same metal composition as the Presidential/Sacagaewa Dollar, coin size should be somewhere between the 5 cent and 25 cent coins, and have an interrupted edge (3 sections plain, 3 sections reeded.)
$1 coin – no changes other than make the lettering in the lettered edge bolder.
$2 coin – seriously needed, must be bimetallic.
That is my 2 cents worth.
Michael Doran
Doran Coins
Charleston, IL
US needs to get out of the coin business altogether. Let each state handle it on their own.
SAVE YOUR NICKELS.