Viewpoint: Compromise On Dollar, Cent Use

Because Reagan is too divisive, and I don't think he won enough wars for that to be overlooked.

Creative but basically no chance of happening. None of those groups are going to give on anything, once you give you send the message that you can just be phased out. Even the author admits theyll likely have a smaller piece of the pie with that idea which again they have no interest in. The only way to get them to take that is if they have a serious threat of just eliminating it completely which they dont have.

Articles, stories, reports, newspapers, TV and on and on with all the possible changes to our monitary system. Yet year after year, little to nothing ever happens.

Here's my idea for the coinage and currency:

No more pennies/cents

No more nickels

Dime: Keep Franklin Roosevelt on front/new reverse

No more quarters

New 20 cent coin/fifth the size of the nickel: Ronald Reagan on front/ a flowing American flag, on the reverse of the new fifth.

Half: Keep John F. Kennedy on front, and reduce the half to the size of the quarter/Susan B. Anthony and Ike dollar's "Eagle Landing on the Moon" reverse.

No more $1 bills.

Dollar Coin: George Washingtom on front. 2000 Sacagawea dollar's eagle design on reverse.

No more $2 bills.

$2 coin: Thomas Jefferson on front/Monticello reverse.

No more $5 bills.

$5 coin: Abebraham Lincoln front/Lincoln Memmorial reverse.

I have no complaints with the $10-$100 bills, however:

Create a $200 bill with Theodore Roosevelt on the front/Mount Rushmore on the reverse.

Reissue the $500 and $1,000 bills and keep the same designs on both sides, which are William McKinley on the $500 and Grover Cleveland on the $1,000, and keep their last reverse, which basically is just their denomination, wrote in fancy numbers and letters, but just update those designs.

I was somewhat okay with it until the part about replacing Jefferson with Washington. Not because I prefer one over the other, but because of the clueless people. Imagine someone accepting the one dollar Washington note thinking that it was an older (small head) version of the new (big head) two dollar Washington note. Yes, they would be totally ignoring the '1' on them. You know it will happen.

I do like the ideal of making the nickel Jarden's new cash cow.

With Jarden placated, the only resistance is political. The easy solution is to remove political effigies from all of our money and return to Liberty.

Okay, here's mine. I'm just guessing on the designs.

Penny: No
Nickel: No
Dime: Aluminum bronze, a crossed sword and plowshare (because the hammer and sickle is objectionable), Liberty casting a vote?
Fifth: Copper-nickel with a hole through it, 13 stars stuck in a wreath of something, denomination in big letters for the slow learners, maybe a bunch of eagles flying around in circles.
Half: Slightly bigger than the current quarter. Nickel silver. Liberty planting some seeds (yes, this should evoke the French liberty designs). A radiant Phrygian cap, unless that's too Mexican.
Dollar: Same size as today. Liberty reaching out like on the Trade dollar. Maybe there can even be a map of the world involved. Edge lettering same as today, but the date and mint mark are restored to one of the faces. The other side can maybe have another female personification, like Victory in fairly modern soldiers' clothes.
Two dollars: 13-sided (get it), thick and bimetallic. Yes, it is possible to have a non-round bimetallic coin (Jordan, 1/2 dinar). Inner ring is copper-nickel, outer ring is aureate bronze plated over nickel. This has a lovely over-worked ornate Union shield, and on the other side is... um... Liberty riding an eagle? I've run out of patriotic designs. Oh, and include a lateral image, maybe just saying USA and $2.

Five dollars: Another thick coin, pretty big (see the used-every-day-without-complaint Swiss 5-franc coin). Edge has excuse lettering, which is one of the hardest things to fake. Brass center, nickel silver outer ring. I have no idea what would go here, but it can't be a real person.

Ten dollars: A lovely coin that won't circulate. 10 grams of silver in the center with an outer ring of something colorful - maybe even anodized aluminum or just a colorized surface. There is a very ornate wreath filled with symbols of plenty, including the anachronistic (gears, Ethernet cables, maybe a tiny depiction of the coin itself...) Silver isn't used in circulation coins, because these will vanish from banks and be hoarded, but at least they'll do it in style.

People can't agree about politics, but I hope they can agree on the US being a republic, so I went overboard with republican symbols and Liberty.

Interesting idea to try and placate Jarden with the nickel, but I think you would be in for a real challenge trying to make cupper nickel clad zinc strip. And the waste material after blanking is probably going to be pretty worthless. It may also hurt the market for the scrap from the coppernickel clad blanking as well. Currently the makers of the clad strip buy the wastage to use as raw material for the five cent strip. Jarden may take some of it but a clad nickel would require a lot less coppernickel. Rather than placating Jarden just coincide the cent ending with when their strip contract ends.

Meanwhile, this issue was resolved in 1986 in Canada...

It's ridiculous to watch the same thing at stake in America, only the paper companies lobby and the zinc companies lobby and people complain about coins being "too big" and the politicians who go on the coins are too partisan and someone always brings up "tradition" and someone makes an appeal for the entire population of the country to make the decision for them...

It's easier when you only have one person to put on all the coins!!