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Posted 07/12/2013 1:46 pm
I find the paper dollar ridiculous & cumbersome. (Come on, would people have gone for a paper quarter in the '70s? because that is what our dollar is worth today!) And nobody except me will accept a 38 mm 22.5 g dollar coin. So they have to be made smaller for convenience â€" most especially, to pass through vending machine coin acceptors, so that those awful bill rejectors can be dispensed with.
But the execution of the modern dollar series has been mishandled from the very beginning. The Canadian $1, of similar size & colour (when new), is very well accepted, & would undoubtedly continue to circulate extensively even if the paper dollar were revived. Since the Mint wasn't trying to match the electrical properties of an existing circulation silver coin, back in 1979, they could have made the SBA out of pretty much anything. For example, aluminum-bronze-clad cupronickel, which would have had a distinctive colour & electromagnetic signature. And there was no reason not to make them polygonal, instead of that pseudo-polygonal edge treatment.
But the new $1s had to match the SBAs in EM signature, hence the awful choice of composition (no other country in the world uses manganese in its coinage!), as well as go through the banking system seamlessly (counting machines, paper rolls, &c), so polygonal was out too. Very disappointing. I got a couple of rolls of Sacagaweas when they first came out, for pocket money, & was amazed at the way they turned colour while still in the roll.
The Presidentials I just have to call badly executed. The portraits are, by & large, unattractive & lifelessly modeled. Moreover, if we consider the effigy of a President to be the "representation of Liberty" described in the 1792 Coinage Act, then the Statue of Liberty on the reverse gives us the same design on both sides! How difficult would it be to use, say, a heraldic eagle from the coinage of the time of the President depicted? The Sacagawea, for all my beefs with it, is well done, but not these.
Of course, it doesn't help that I consider all these "series" excessively gimmicky. Changing the design four times a year doesn't give the impression of solidity & lasting value which we used to attempt to create by keeping the same designs for many years. But I spend them anyway!
But the execution of the modern dollar series has been mishandled from the very beginning. The Canadian $1, of similar size & colour (when new), is very well accepted, & would undoubtedly continue to circulate extensively even if the paper dollar were revived. Since the Mint wasn't trying to match the electrical properties of an existing circulation silver coin, back in 1979, they could have made the SBA out of pretty much anything. For example, aluminum-bronze-clad cupronickel, which would have had a distinctive colour & electromagnetic signature. And there was no reason not to make them polygonal, instead of that pseudo-polygonal edge treatment.
But the new $1s had to match the SBAs in EM signature, hence the awful choice of composition (no other country in the world uses manganese in its coinage!), as well as go through the banking system seamlessly (counting machines, paper rolls, &c), so polygonal was out too. Very disappointing. I got a couple of rolls of Sacagaweas when they first came out, for pocket money, & was amazed at the way they turned colour while still in the roll.
The Presidentials I just have to call badly executed. The portraits are, by & large, unattractive & lifelessly modeled. Moreover, if we consider the effigy of a President to be the "representation of Liberty" described in the 1792 Coinage Act, then the Statue of Liberty on the reverse gives us the same design on both sides! How difficult would it be to use, say, a heraldic eagle from the coinage of the time of the President depicted? The Sacagawea, for all my beefs with it, is well done, but not these.
Of course, it doesn't help that I consider all these "series" excessively gimmicky. Changing the design four times a year doesn't give the impression of solidity & lasting value which we used to attempt to create by keeping the same designs for many years. But I spend them anyway!
