Roosevelt Dime, Record Design?

Sounds like a plan to me!

No record though it's not so far from a record for the longest string with no changes; the clads are effectively unchanged for 48 years now.

What about the Jeffs, do they not count thanks to the war nickels/commemoratives?

Our current Canadian designs date back to the ascension of King George VI in 1937, replacing the wreaths used since the time of Victoria (first issued in 1858). The cent and nickel are a bit weird, as they were both changed much later than America - we had a tiny silver " Half Dime" until 1921, and the cent was only downsized in 1920. All of our denominations have suffered commemoratives or design changes since then, with a different animal featured on every coin in our centennial (1967) and a bajillion commemorative quarters. We also had a 2001 Year of Volunteers dime, a 2005 60th Anniversary of V-E Day nickel, and a 2002 Golden Jubilee half featuring a special portrait of the Queen. However, all of these are indeed disqualified as "unchanged designs" thanks to the frequent change in monarchs...

When I was at the coin forum the day before the White Mountain quarter release ceremony in February, I mentioned to acting mint director Richard Peterson that the mint should issue a special 2015 dime along with the congressionally approved march of dimes commemorative dollars to be issued that year. He said he needed congressional permission to change the design of a coin, but I said I don't think he did if the design is more than 25 years old. I think a staffer off to the side made a note of it. Hopefully they check up on it and we get a new dime in 2015, if only for a one year commemorative.

I looked it up just now, and the law in question is 31 USC § 5112 - Denominations, Specifications, and Design of Coins, paragraph (d)(2).


The way I interpret this is it can only be changed once in the first 25 years, but after that... it can be changed as many times as the Secretary of the Treasury wants to change it.

I calculated this recently (well, about a year ago) for another reason (don't remember which one).
The longest continuous US coin design is the Liberty Head quarter eagle, at exactly 68 years (1840-1907).
The obvious choice is the Washington quarter, but it's only been around for 67 years (1932-1998).
And the already-mentioned Jefferson nickel seems to come in third place, with 66 years (1938-2003).

...I thought foreign examples would be commonplace; guess not (at least for coins that did say the year - the main reason is that they also tended to mention the monarchs, and monarchs ruling for 60+ years were kind of rather rare). Ignoring possible French issues from the reign of Louis XIV (I'm not familiar with these enough), the only one I can think about is Switzerland; I have a Swiss coin from 1894 with exactly the same design as on modern coins, and I've heard that it actually started a few decades earlier.

As if we needed another reason to hate Congress.

I don't think a gap in mintage would constitute a "change".

However, I do consider even minor changes to count so the addition of the designer initials to the Jefferson nickel in 1966 restarted that series.

To my mind the 58 year run of the 2 1/2 dollar gold is the one to beat. The Roosevelt clad dime has a good shot at it but I still wouldn't mind seeing a design change for all US coins. We need to modernize and rationalize the coinage system, and bring it into the 21st century artistically.

This means at the very least the cessation of pennies and changing the composition of the "nickel" to aluminum. It also means the withdrawl of the one dollar note as well as the circulation of a $2 coin and circulation of a $2 note to ease the transition. Numerous changes are needed but these are a minimum in order to fascilitate commerce and present a rational face to the future and the world at large. These are the minimum requirements to stop throwing away money and to assure a few more years of the usage of currency. These changes would slow the transmission of disease and even help thwart pickpockets since they wouldn't see where you keep your wallet when you make small purchases.