Replacement Of People On Our Coins

We should also contain some silver in our coins - not 90 percent but at least 10 or 15 percent - to give it some value other than "legal tender" status.

That will never happen. I believe that 10% silver still exceeds face value, or at least makes it worthwhile to hoard until silver makes another run.

publius:
Your range of suggested denominations makes a lot of common sense to me.
The Double Dollar is getting close to the mass of the current Half, so perhaps it could be bi metallic base metals, and smaller. The Canadians have provided the lead in this regard, with their 'Twonie'.

There are not very many coins around the World in common circulation that are significantly above 10 grammes in mass. For the ones that are, there is a tendency for them to be thicker and smaller in diameter. The 'dumpiness' gives the impression of value.

I guess that the Eagle denomimations, which could also be bi metallic, would be non circulating at this time, due to their diameter and mass. If that is the case, silver could be included in their composition, so long as the value of it is very safely below the the face value of the coin.

I will leave it up your countrymen to comment on the content of the designs suggested.

I read a lot of these posts believe we should celebrate the "Idol" the coins represent. It was mentioned in an earlier post - not a single one of these men wanted, would want or envisioned they would be the face of the various symbolism's they are being representative of on our coinage today. I believe most would in fact point to the root of the nation - not draw attention to themselves as the point man on any of the things they hoped to achieve but what all people hoped to achieve in their lifetimes.

Washington did not want to lead our nation - he was asked to lead. Lincoln did not set out to free the slaves - yet lived in a time when he believed they should be freed and did what he had to do to make that happen. I could go on and on... but the bottom line they all believed in the basic premise - America was founded with basic principles that all men (all men meant all people), are created equal and should be allowed to pursue these basic tenants...

Life - Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

That is why I am for returning to those symbols for our coinage. I think many have lost that/those visions and would focus on the achievements of the individuals placed on our coins - if we simply just rotate a former president or leading statesman on to the surface of a penny or a nickel or dime. America was founded with a vision for all people and when we turn the focus and start singling out 1 person above all others - that ideology is lost.

My proof reading is terrible..hence the edit.

I suggested clad materials for the higher denominations, rather than ring-&-plug bimetallics, because they are more difficult to fake, & last longer in circulation. Ring-&-plug coins suffer from galvanic corrosion when in contact with an electrolyte such as human sweat, but sandwich coins are not affected to any great extent. I have never seen a US, Panamanian, or Thai clad coin which showed the least evidence of inter-layer corrosion. Clad bmetallics with a colour contrast at the edge are visually recognizable as genuine & difficult to imitate, while all clad materials can have the electromagnetic properties "customized" to a great extent.

In the Eurozone, some counterfeits of the 50-cent coin have been seen, but most are of the 1- & 2-Euro pieces. Making the half-dollar slightly heavier, & of cupronickel instead of a more-easily-imitated brass composition, seems a sufficient security. I tend to think that the Euro coins are just a little too small & light to give the desired impression of stability & substance that one wants in a currency.

The current Australian 50-cent coin, which seemed to me to circulate very widely when I visited Melbourne a couple of years back, is about the size of my proposed double-dollar denomination (actually noticeably heavier, at over 15 g). This I regard as about the largest size for a widely-circulating coin, so I give it to the largest base-metal circulating coin.

The half-eagle, which I would expect to circulate to some extent (less than the double-dollar, considerably more than the eagle & double-eagle), although smaller than the double-dollar, has its silver content to give it the feeling of "substance" commensurate with its value. I chose 800 fine for the silver cladding because my observations of Canadian coins, as well as the silver-clad US coinage with its 800-fine surfaces, lead me to believe that this alloy combines visual appeal with durability to a maximum for the various silver compositions.

Notice that in all my proposed denominations, there is an upward trend in size with value : the double-dime (bottom of the cupronickel pair) is bigger than the half-dime (bottom of the nickel-brass pair), the dollar (bottom of the polygonal clad pair) is bigger than the double-dime, & the half-eagle (bottom of the silver-clad) is bigger than the dollar. Furthermore, the bottom member of each pair is bigger than the top member of the last-but-one, ie, the dollar is bigger than the dime, & the half-eagle than the half-dollar. If you wanted to represent it like a rhyme-scheme in poetry, it would be ABACBDCDD (lumping in the double-eagle with the eagle & its half, despite the difference in the details of their silver-clad compositions).

I would love to see American ideals represented. A return of Liberty, but perhaps also personified figures of industry, justice, etc. I don't think it's doing the framers any injustice to replace them after so long with the ideals they championed. Also, some memorial of them could remain on the reverse.

Now here's a funny (and bad) idea. What if the current president were always featured (sort of like the reigning british monarch)? Suddenly, coinage would become a very partisan issue. I can picture some people not taking certain coins as change because of their feelings about one president or another. I would love to see the fallout from that one!

I can see the stories now on the current president coins... Some of the gossip rags are ripping Drew Brees for leaving a $3 tip on a $75 order. Next we will have - he left me 3 measley Hillary Clinton's!

Joseph Stalin, of course...!