Stressful Trying To Contact Appointed Officials

You're going to just have to contact someone way lower down and would likely have better luck with your congressional representatives office. Or the much easier thing would be to contact something like Coin World

Director and high level government employees don't publish a direct line to them or they would be getting bombarded all day and night by people.

Whether or not it still applies the chances that he comes out and says I'm redesigning everything is slim to none and slim has left town. Also be careful what you wish for, the new nickel and penny aren't exactly stunning and frankly the old versions were better especially for the nickel

Sort of like trying to contact Superman or Batman. For all you know there is no such person. Only a figure head with that name and/or title. Imagine if you were at the top of some organization where millions of people want to get in touch with you. What would YOU do if you received about 100,000 emails or phone calls each day. And the worst of it is how many of them just want to say nothing of any value, just mumbling. If I had to publicize my email or phone number I'd so like girls do in high school and give out the number for the zoo.

I'm not a lawyer, but my recollection is that legislation that affects written code like this actually changes the code that we would see here -- we wouldn't see the legislation that was passed, only the impact on the code. (Legislation usually says things like "this amends the Code to strike this clause or include this sentence".)

It's interesting that the code at the link I provided mandates Jefferson and Monticello on the nickel but says nothing about Lincoln or Roosevelt.

So I did a little digging for Roosevelt. Wikipedia notes only a bill filed by James Hobson Morrison to put Roosevelt on the dime, but I couldn't find any written legislation mandating the design. Wikipedia does note that "As the Mercury design, first coined in 1916, had been struck for at least 25 years, it could be changed under the law by the Bureau of the Mint. No congressional action was required, though the committees of each house with jurisdiction over the coinage were informed."

More on this can be found in this reference from Google Books, quoting Morrison:


So I'm guessing that's how it was done -- Roosevelt's design was not legislatively mandated, which is why it doesn't appear in the code. Being more than 25 years old, they could change it again with or without more legislation.

Edit to add: Further complicating what I thought I knew... the Kennedy design was legislatively mandated by Public Law 88-256, basically saying Kennedy on the obverse and "an appropriate design to be prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury" on the reverse -- but this is not explicit in the Code I linked. So there could be things related to the Code that don't appear here. But anything superceding would, I still presume, would overwrite the code rather than be extraneous to it.

Which is exactly why I said be careful what you wish for.

In all seriousness the Presidents won't be going anywhere from the coins even if there was a redesign. The design committees would just end up ruining any good designs or not picking them and politicians would be falling over themselves to try and make social statements with the designs. By the time if was all done we'd all be wishing they just stayed the same and the ultra modern business strike market would be a ghost town

You are trying to contact the wrong person.

The Act of 1890 gave the Secretary of the Treasury NOT the Director of the Mint the power to change the designs after 25 years without going through Congress. And yes it is still operative.

Our best chance for something like that was when Lloyd Benson was Secretary. At that time all of the coins were eligible for changing and when Benson retired a Secretary he was also retiring from public life. He could have ordered the change and then retired and not had to answer to anyone for the decision.



That was because when the Bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase nickels were approved the Senators and Representatives of Virginia raised a stink and inssited on the provision that mandated a return of Monticello to the reverse permanently. I would believe in that case that would supersede the Act of 1890, it would require new legislation removing that permanent mandate first.

Exactly and I am increasingly pessimistic about that, at least it happening before coins (if not all cash) become extinct.


Do no get me wrong, I welcome a tasteful and appropriate change. However, back to what you said earlier, be careful what we wish for.

Touche.