How far can you throw a Presidential dollar?

Let’s take a chapter from our national past and start dollar throwing contests for coin collectors.

Our first President, George Washington, in addition to admitting cutting down a cherry tree, also supposedly threw a dollar across the Potomac River, or the Rappahannock, depending on the version of the story.

Let’s arm collectors with George Washington Presidential dollars and have a competition to see who can throw one the farthest.

We can break groups down by ages and the other usual ways.

Step up to the line and heave that base-metal coin as far as you can.

Judges with tape measures can check the results, and a field can be marked beforehand to make the measurements easy.

In addition to individual categories, coin clubs could raise teams of six or eight of their best throwers and go head to head with each other.

Results could be the best two out of three in achieving the longest combined team distances.

Leagues could be formed and championships held.

Neighboring coin clubs might poach the best dollar throwers to their teams.

We could write about crosstown rivalries, as for example, if Milwaukee’s South Shore Coin Club would go head to head with the Milwaukee Numismatic Society.

The American Numismatic Association could hold the national championships during the World’s Fair of Money each summer.

At the awards banquet the best team could be recognized.

If ever there was a way for coin collectors to dispel their stuffy national image of individuals who wear sweaters with elbow patches, a dollar throwing contest would be it.

In fact, sweaters with elbow patches might just become the team uniform of the best throwers.

Spouses would think that at last we had all lost our minds. But think of the national news media headlines.

We could even donate the dollars that we throw to a local charity.

Then we would be participating in an activity that would cause the world to see coin collectors in a whole new light.

Buzz blogger Dave Harper has twice won the Numismatic Literary Guild Award for Best Blog and is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."