New Presidential Dollars... Ugly Or Beautiful?

I pretty much echo Rigoletto's thoughts in the first post of this thread.

I would bet that I was one of the very first CCF members to get on the Presidential dollars Bandwagon. When I first heard of the proposed legislation, I was thrilled. Having been a history teacher for 35 years, and offering a course specifically about the Presidents -- I was very pleased indeed.

Now that it's happened, I would have to say I am happy with the coins overall. I really like the reverse, and I have seen a lot of excitment among people who saw them for the first time. I think that excitment will translate into more coin collectors. And, I hope that the coins will cause some people to want to learn more about Presidents they know very little, or nothing, about. Learn things not just about the Presidents, but perhaps events that took place during their term(s) in office.

The negatives. I am not too thrilled with the obverses. They look like a token from Chuckie Cheese. On the other hand, perhaps there's not much more a designer can do regarding the obverse.

Perhaps because my eyesight has taken some hits in recent years, I don't like the edge letttering. I have trouble reading it.

Also, I don't like what I consider as downright deception. All the hype in the legislation, and from the mint, regarding the importance of establishing the new dollar as a circulating coin. Boloney! Those involved in making the Presidential dollars a reality realized they would not circulate, but would be a cash cow for the Government. Most of my friends have yet to see a Washington Dollar. It wouldn't have bothered me if those in charge had either just admitted why the dollar would be produced, or said nothing at all. Claiming that getting a dollar coin to circulate was part of the reason for the new coins is ridiculous. We all know that geting rid of the $1 bill is what's needed.

To conclude, I'm happy we have the new Dollar, but it certainly has its downsides.

It may be a bit early to pan all the President dollars as ugly. Yes, the Washington coin is ugly, but from what I have seen I think the John Adams coin looks much nicer.

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They're beautiful! I think that if the coin is a $2 coin, for instance, it should have $2 worth of silver, along with the other metals in it.

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You must be joking. As soon as silver rose slightly all of them would disappear from circulation. The only way a silver coin can be introduced into circulation and remain there is if the silver value is just a fraction of the coins face value. Look at it this way. A $2 bimetallic coin with a 90% silver center that had $1 worth of siver in it would have a center about the size of a dime and could circulate until silver reached $28 an oz. With $2 worth of silver the center would be the size of a nickel and would circulate until silver reached about $14.25 In other words, not long. (Not to mention that with the $2 value of the silver, plus the cost of the metal in the outer ring, plus the manufacturing cost, the mint would already be coining it at a loss.)

The new dollar coins are so uninteresting they don't even qualify to have their artistic merits judged. There have been so many great portraits of the Presidents that the Mint apparently went out of its way to ignore them all.

I'm also pretty sure the Professor was not involved with creating Sacagawea's offspring. I will leave the reason for that up to you since this is a family forum.