Special Report: Congress May End Dollar Coin Program

Is it now worthwhile to begin buying the OBW rolls from the U.S. Mint? After all this press, I am sure they are going to drastically drop mintage levels for upcoming Dollars.

The reply I was going to post has become unnecessary.

Like I said already, and wpd7 reinforces, I think everyone missed the real point.
Government fiat accounting at it's finest, seignorage. Does anyone truly think that, e.g., the Kennedy halves are being minted for real commerce? They are minted for their paper profit and accounting bottom line for the government coffers.

Kennedy halves are minted not so much for their paper profit but for their real profit. They are all sold to collectors for a premium over face value.

Did you read Jackie Speier's Dear Colleague letter? She want to stop wasting taxpayers money striking these coins and use the money saved to reduce the deficit.

I sent her back a reply explaining how striking them didn't cost one dime of taxpayer money because the Mint is self funding from seigniorage. Not only that but after they take out their funding they turn the balance over to the Treasury general fund, That means that striking these coins has already reduced the deficit by roughly a billion dollars. Not producing them will actually increase the deficit because there will be less money coming into the general fund.

The cost of storing them though DOES cost taxpayer money, but if the dollar note was discontinued then these coins would enter circulation and we wouldn't have to pay to store them.

I doubt I will get an answer.

What I don't understand is why they have to mint so many of them. Kennedy halves are minted mostly for the collector, about 4 million a year for both mints.

Here are the mint figures for the Presidential dollars:



There there's the SAC dollars also which went from 3.6 million minted in 2008 to 71 million minted in 2009 because of the 20% law.

Seeing as how no one is using them and it's the law they have to mint them, can't they just mint them for the collector's market? Do they really need to mint 400 milllion a year? How about just minting 4 million coins per President, P & D mint combined and a couple million SAC's for the collectors market. That would still be 6 million dollar coins minted per year which is still too much, but it makes more sense than 400 + million.

It was a bad program to begin with. There are too many dead Presidents on coins anyway, and how many collectors want to rush out and get the Rutherford B Hayes dollars?

The ATB Quarter program shouldn't have started to begin with too. It was the mint's desire to make money and thought collectors would be all over this program like the State Quarter program but it's not working. At least they don't mint an oversupply of the ATB Quarters.

If you're listening mint..... you don't have to mint 300-400 million Presidential dollars a year.... just mint a few million for the collector's market. Or better yet, do away with the $1 banknote and use these coins, but I'm 99.9% sure that would never take effect because politics get in the way of everything.

whenever I go to the bank these days I ask for dollar coins. I really don't collect the presidentials or the sacagewa or SBA (Ugliest coin I can think of) but it would make so much sense to have dollar coins rather than dollar bills, the lifespan is that much longer and the ultimate costs are lower. Hey it works in Canada quite well doing it that way.

So I just spend them and people are genuinely surprised to see them.

smokeriderdon said:



Since it was a Canadian banks who would tell me the shipping costs were a large problem - and the Canadians are the ones who accept and readily use the Loonie dollar coin, the opinion you state here does not apply. This "ignorant argument" was given from a country who has already gone through the process.




When the US was fist announcing the Sacs, and I was making trips to different Canadian banks - getting Loonies and Half dollars - the conversation would come up - initiated by the bankers - of how they thought the US would be smart enough not to make the same (their words) "mistake."

I know that over the years of living near Canada, that many Canadian friends said the same thing. They felt they were "stuck with them" and did not like having to carry so many around, but it was more difficult to exchange them b/c the banks did not want them due to the extra costs the banks underwent in shipping them back to get larger bills. As one friend said, "so, as usual, the little people get stuck with the repercussions."

This is not my opinion. This is what I was told by many people from a country who have had the $ coin in their system for quite some time.

They also were the ones who told me that as soon as the dollar coin was out and became "pocket change" that retailers took advantage and started raising all the prices - trying to make a dollar be in the same status as how a quarter is perceived.

B/c so many Loonies were in people's pockets, the Toonie came into being. It made for less coins having to be carried in the pocket (although it is a larger coin). It - sort of - helped the problem (their words).

Another note is that I was told that Canadians were forced into using the dollar coin also b/c they stopped making the paper $1 and $2.00 bills at the same time (or close). Although Canada had always accepted the $2.00 readily, I was told the overall attitude to the Loonies was similar to what the majority of people in the States currently have towards dollar coins.

Why should the elected officials in our country be able to ram these down our throats if the general populace does not want them? The elected officials are just that - elected - to serve the people. Since tax payer money is not used for making coins/bills, it saves tax payers nothing to make the coins. The "loss" is only out of the profits that go back to the (Not)Federal Reserve Bank and BP&G. So the choice comes down to whether or not a more cost cutting procedure (hence more profits for the big guys - with which I have no problem) is worth more, in the long run, than the will of the people en masse.

BTW - my only real aversion to the $1.00 coins is the aforementioned opportunity it gives our greedy society to price gauge everything upwards sine the price is "only a dollar - mere pocket change." It will happen if the sheeple start accepting these coins readily. Why would any person want to see this happen? If there is really that much more money out there that people do not want, send it to me and I'll build my collection of older coins