We wait for a new Mint director

When are we going to get a new director of the United States Mint?

It is a logical question anytime, but more so following the news that a Treasurer of the United States has been nominated by the President.

The post has been vacant since Ed Moy resigned in 2011.

Moy had an interest in numismatics. He thought like a collector.

We remember him as the motive force behind the Ultra High Relief $20 gold coin of 2009.

It was a coin that was envisioned during the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, but it was not cut out for use in circulation.

It would not stack.

The needs of commerce trumped artistic merit.

But in 2009, collectors desired artistic merit.

Besides, gold was no longer used as a circulating medium of exchange.

The odds are we will not have a coin collector Mint director again.

It might seem like after a six-year-vacancy that we might not ever have a Mint director again.

Certainly there are more important positions in the government to be nominated and filled.

News media report this process is going slowly.

When I spoke to Ed Moy at the World Money Fair in February in Berlin, he was optimistic that he would soon lose his title as the last U.S. Mint director.

Certainly this notoriety has given a boost to public attention paid to him and is perhaps part of the reason collectors want his autograph on slabs.

It is to be hoped that a new Mint director can be in place by the Aug. 1 opening of the American Numismatic Association World’s Fair of Money in Denver.

A new director would be received like a numismatic rock star.

He might even be asked to cut the ribbon.

Of course, I am getting ahead of reality here.

Perhaps it won’t be until 2018 that we will see a Mint director at an ANA convention.

That would be a shame, but numismatics is not exempt from the larger political forces at work in Washington, D.C.

The position will be filled according to the political clock.

Political accomplishments are why the individuals are nominated in the first place.

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