Continuing the 1983 review...To review the House proposals, see American Gold Eagle Program / 1983 Proposals - Part IJust a couple of days after the introduction of Ron Paul's bills, Jesse Helms (R-NC) introduced a similar bill in the Senate; it was referred to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.
The bill called for the same one-ounce and half-ounce, 0.900 fine gold coins with the same Liberty-themed obverse and Great Seal reverse designs as in the Representative Paul bills. The coins were again
not to be legal tender. In addition, the Helms bill also included the same mintage provisions as the House bills..
It also called for a pricing model based on the previous day's commodities exchange price for gold, but added the specificity of the price at the 4:00pm close of the exchange - the House bills did not include such time specification.
As with the House bills, foreign gold coins and bullion could be exchanged for the new gold bullion coins via deposit at any designated US Mint facility.
One notable difference, however, was in regards to taxation of the bullion coins. The Helms bill included a provision for exempting the gold bullion coins from sales, personal property and excise taxes, plus also declaring that gains/losses connected to the purchase of the gold coins were not to be recognized as capital gains/losses. The House bills discussed above did not include such provisions.
The Senate bill was included in a Hearing conducted by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs in April 1983; the Hearing also reviewed a new Senate silver coin proposal. The Hearing brought together largely the same group of witnesses as did the previous House Subcommittee Hearing on gold coinage:
- Ron Paul, Representative (X-TX), House Bill Sponsor (Co-Sponsor)
- Adna Wilde, President of the American Numismatic Association
- Mrs. George (Miley) Busiek, Coin Designer
- Louis Vigdor, Vice President, Manfra, Tordella & Brookes ("MTB"( - Representing the National Association of Coin & Precious Metals Dealer
- Angela Buchanan, Treasurer of the United States
- Manuel Johnson, Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy, Department of the Treasury
New to the American Gold Eagle discussion were:
- Jesse Helms. Senator, Bill Sponsor
- David Ganz, Attorney
Representative Ron Paul (R-TX), the sponsor of the parallel bills in the House, was the first to testify. He presented extended data on the views of the Gold Commission (he was a member), US sales of international gold coins, the importance of gold ownership to promote economic stability and the role of gold in the international monetary system.
He concluded his statement with:
"Finally, Mr. Chairman, let me thank you for this opportunity to give testimony about the Report of the Gold Commission, and to demonstrate how the legislation I have introduced, along with Senator Helms, has answered the issues raised by the two dissenters on the Gold Commission. I strongly urge you to report these bills favorably to the Senate because:
"(1) The American people want to buy and use American gold coins rather than foreign gold coins.
"(2) The coinage program will yield immediate revenue to the United States that is presently paid abroad.
"(3) A parallel, troy-ounce gold and silver coinage can have important stabilizing influences during a crisis.
"(4) The international financial system, which is essentially unregulated, is evolving toward a standard troy ounce of gold as its frame of reference."Note: I've covered the salient points of the returning witnesess' testimony previously, so I won't repeat it here. To understand the views of the witnesses, see: American Gold Eagle Program / 1982 Proposals - Part II and American Gold Eagle Program / 1982 Proposals - Part III.A few new notes:
(1) David Ganz recommended that the bill be updated to state that foreign gold coins and/or gold bullion exchanged for the new American Eagle gold bullion coins should also be exempt from capital gains or losses to avoid the potential for a person making such exchange to "pay capital gains tax, or to permit them to, accrue a loss. We do not believe that this is the intent of the Committee."
(2) Senator Jess Helms stated his support for the gold bullion coinage and offered:
"Let me make five brief points on my bill and my reasons for sponsoring it. First, in an amendment to the American Arts and Gold Medallion program, there was some opposition from the Treasury Department. A compromise was reached which resulted in the program we have today.
"The second point is the nature of the new gold eagle coin itself.It would be treated as a unit of currency for purposes of making transactions but it would not - repeat - would not have legal tender status.
"The third point is that the people in the marketplace have spoken. They have said that they want a gold coin and by adopting this legislation we would be providing something as close as we can to what the people want.
"Fourth, the bill provides for people to bring gold to the Treasury Department and exchange it for gold eagles. That means that the U.S. gold reserve would not be depleted beyond the limit of 10 million ounces provided for in the bill.
"Fifth and finally, I know that there are other proposals for designs of such a coin and I don't have any objection whatsoever to anybody's design, although I think I ought to remind the committee - and I hope I'm not being ungallant in this - that the last time Congress tried to design a coin, it was the Susan B. Anthony dollar and we got the ugliest coin in history.'(Helms was known for his directness!)
(3) - Manuel Johnson, Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy, Department of the Treasury suggested updating the first delivery date of the new coins to January 1, 1985 (vs. July 1, 1984). He made this suggestion in consideration of the fact that the US Mint would be busy striking American Arts Gold Medallions and the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics $10 gold coin and would benefit from the extra time.
(4) Paul A. Volcker, Chairman Federal Reserve System was not present at the Hearing, but submitted a written statement in which he concluded with:
"I have no fundamental objections to the minting of a denominationless U.S. gold ccin without lecal-tender states. I do, however, see serious distortionary problem in the coin's tax-exempt status, which would be accorded to only one of the many assets available to the public."With complicated issues still to be resolved, neither of the House bills, nor the Senate bill advanced in their respective chamber The American Gold Eagle bullion coin program would have to wait until 1984 to make real progress.
For other of my posts about commemorative coins and medals, including other US modern-era US coin stories, see:
Commems Collection 
Posted Today 2H 22M ago
