My Latest Pet Project : Getting Silver Back In Circulation

Steve and Nina,
I think one thing that might be being overlooked in the "stupid" category is that the "stupid" might actually be a plus in this instance.

Everyone knows silver and gold are valuable (just how valuable is not known). I can the average John D(umb)oe getting wide eyed in surprised and saying, "you mean that's real (ooh shiny!) silver?"

Also, I live in an area of PA where the NORFED, Liberty Dollars were accepted pretty well. A lot of how it got started was that the people using them began by spending them at local farmers' markets, and the many private businesses that line the main streets through town (this area of PA is noted for towns that still have town squares). Of course garage sales etc. were also targets.

The area people got to seeing enough of them, and wanting to own real (ooh - shiny!) silver that places even such as the local Wal Mart started taking them. I feel it was probably just the cashiers accepting them and buying them out of their drawers - but they were accepted. A lot of the private businesses/restaurants in town were glad to hang a sign in the window saying they accepted them.

Now that the FBI raided the system, and NORFED has been stopped the officials try to find some way to prosecute the guy while making it all look legal, the Liberty Dollars have dried up in this area. I know there were thousands used here for a fact b/c I know the local who was the main distributor. He had so many going through his hands that he actually had a vending machine made to distribute them! So where are all of them now? Simple - people have hoarded them b/c they are (ooh shiny!) real silver!

Stupid (or in this case, just referring to the generally uninformed about silver and gold - not really "stupid" per se - just part of the herd mentality) can be a good thing sometimes if honestly and properly exploited.

Steve,

The travails of the self-employed are totally not unknown to me. I was homeschooled for two years and during that time not only did my mom run an e-business, I was her employee. The people at the post office got very used to seeing me pull in on my bike at noon with a couple of bags full of packages to get sent out (I'm the only kid I know who attended middle school as night school, 4pm-9pm--the school let me count my time doing website design and learning about invoices as a business and practical math class, which made up the extra two hours). The advantage you have over me is that when I'm blinded by a migraine I ask my dad to take me to work so I don't crash my car, and then I stand under fluorescents for eight hours listening to kids yell and customers with high squeaky voices and those big booming guys who run the high school football team and the everlasting rumble of the Icee machine. The only difference is that I don't drive. You at least have the luxury of laying down and, if you really have to, going to nap (I'm not downgrading sinus headaches, either--my migraines stem from having sinus surgery as a kid, so I'm very familiar with both types, along with cluster headaches, and saying they suck is like saying WWII was a minor disagreement). Once I'm on the clock, I'm committed. I was absolutely stunned a couple of weeks ago when I was so sick and dizzy I couldn't go in, and my boss found someone to cover my shift.

I guess my biggest issue with these, which you seemed to pick up right away when you replied which is good because on rereading my post I sounded rather cranky (sorry about that), is stupid + inconvenience. I'm not even talking the kind of minor stupid that doesn't know our coins used to be silver. I'm talking about people so moronic that they'll look at the sign on the bathroom door that says "RESTROOM," up at you, back at the door, then back at you and say "Is this a real bathroom*?" No, ma'am, it's a broom closet, but there's a bucket in there you can use. Can we expect that someone who can't figure out that a "RESTROOM" sign means there's a bathroom in there will be able to understand what spot means?

And then, as mentioned, inconvenience. For me this is mostly centred around the fluctuating price of spot. I don't want to accept your card at $4 and then, tomorrow before I can spend it, someone announces that Steve Jobs was working on a way to grow food without soil and that this year's first crop can fill the shortage due to drought, and boom, my card is suddenly worth a buck. I know fluctuations aren't usually that severe, but ask anybody who was alive and old enough to remember October 23, 1929 if they would have ever expected what happened the next day. I understand that the market now is bigger and that the likelihood of a repeat isn't great, but there are lots of us out there with parents or grandparents who've shared cautionary tales, and I see this being a potential problem with getting people to accept.


Just a sidenote about cobranding, please keep in mind (and save yourself a lot of pain and misery) that many large businesses, like McDonald's, are actually franchised and so the McDonald's in your town might accept a card while a McDonald's out here would go "Huh? What's this crap? Get out or I'm calling the cops."


And Earle, I'm pretty sure it is legal--he was making stuff to look like money, which, even if it's not reproducing current money, is called counterfeiting. That's illegal.




*This ACTUALLY HAPPENED TO ME last summer. I'm not just making up an example here. Other gems include "Your gas pumps were built wrong because the nozzle doesn't fit in my car" [trying to use the diesel nozzle in a standard tank even though it's clearly marked DIESEL and is a different colour], "Do you sell Plan B?" [in the US, this is only available by prescription], and someone who I had to tell six, count 'em, SIX times that we do not sell anything marked as diet, caffeine-free 7Up, because all 7Up is caffeine-free.

@Nina

As far as NORFED goes, they actually accused him of counterfeiting by using misconstrued "evidence" by showing a Mercury dime side by side with a NORFED 1 OZ. coin. something like this:



Instead of actual sizes like this:




From the trial notes, they also failed to show images such as these:






There has never been US circulating coins marked $5.00, $10.00, $20.00 etc. This info was conveniently left out. Also, if you notice the last pic, some rounds deliberately say they are not money.

The prosecutors counted on the "stupid" we have been discussing. The reason the case has not been closed yet (2 years and going) is that the case has been appealed and the FEDs know they cannot make it stick.

This kind of operation (bartering silver rounds) has been going on for years - and is still going on. The problem is that NORFED got too big and enough people started using them (I believe production numbers were in excess of 20 million - need to check it though), that the FED noticed and saw the danger of (stupid!) people becoming educated that FED money is worthless.

In fact of the many types of barter rounds being made, I think it is funny that there is even one guy using the original Liberty Dollar OBV on them, but a different REV.

Nina - very interesting facts on Bowie - I had never heard this before. I understand what you are saying in this case.

And as to the whole NORFED thing - I personally do not agree with everything the owner stands for and pushes for. But generally I believe he had the right idea behind his silver rounds.

B/c they were so well accepted where I now live, I did some extensive homework on the whole thing. The owner was continually consulting legal advice while making his product to ensure he did nothing illegal. And he was assured everything he was doing was legal - until he got big enough to notice. Then the FBI showed up ione day and literally confiscated all the PM on the grounds (a lot of which legally belongs to other people and not the owner).

Also, maybe I am not understanding what you mean when you use the term counterfeit. When I use the word, I take it to mean "making an imitation (or close) with intention to deceive - in order to make a profit/take advantage of someone."

Since NORFED silver rounds are an ounce in size, and a Peace dollar is only .77 of an ounce, the rounds are actually worth quite a bit more (at present - around 7.70) . Any seller mistaking a NORFED round for a Peace dollar actually would be coming out on top if they accepted one in payment. I believe this is why they could not nail the maker of these rounds for intent of deceit or theft.

Also, when using these rounds the buyer had to bring attention to the denomination marked on the REV. After all, the buyer was offering this as a 20.00 payment. If the seller was mistaking the round for a Peace dollar, then the seller would think the buyer had only given them $1.00 for their 20.00 purchase and ask where the rest of the money was.


Don't get me wrong - I DO see where someone not familiar with coins could possibly mistake one for a Peace dollar. But if this same person accepted it in payment, he actually would end up with something worth more than what he thought it was!

Basebal, for once we agree. The Constitution strictly forbids states from making their own currency and grants that power to a federal entity. I know here we're dealing with a single individual and not a state, but I highly suspect the same principle will apply.

OK. So I think I'm reading the NORFED stuff and I ask how does this apply to the original idea of this thread of the cards that contain US currency in them but are being valued by spot + whatever as opposed to their actual 'value' as currency?

Like technically all US currency is federal property and that 'defacing federal property is a federal crime' so LEGALLY (and I'm not making this up) sticking it in a package and glueing it down could be construed as defacing federal property. Though I dont know of a melt restriction on the dimes or quarters I could see if this got off the ground like NORFED the government claiming all of these 'packaged currencies' are illegal because they deface the currency.

(Btw I did research this once a long time ago because I was curiouos of the legality of stamping advertising on dollar bills like you see sometimes with websites and what not. Though people tend to argue its not 'illegal enough' to worry about doing stuff like jotting down a note or making a silly design, I decided my stamping my website on a bunch of bills and spending them could come back to haunt me.)

Thats possible but now I wanna know lol because I like doing designs with paints on coins and it would be cool if I could paint up all my generic quarters and spend them in vending machines and what not in the area and see how many come back to me..

Basebal, we're derailing the thread (again) but if you want to make a separate thread about NORFED, I'd be interested in continuing the conversation.


As for the original dimes-in-packaging, I would also caution that you should make sure it is obvious on your website that you are not making any profit from this whatsoever. Reason? If the Fed decides to take a look at your program, you don't want them to start screaming "MONEY LAUNDERING!"