What was more beautiful that the Standing/Sitting and Walking Liberty coins?
(Rhetorical question - the Saint Gaudins Double Eagle)
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Posted on 03/09/2004 3:35:11 PM PST by presidio9
Sacagawea couldn't do it. What about George?
Seeking to increase the popularity of dollar coins, the legislator behind the successful state quarters will propose a similar program on Tuesday featuring portraits of former U.S. presidents on the dollar coin.
Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del., who originated the 50-state quarter program, along with Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., will propose starting the presidential dollars in 2006, featuring four presidents a year in the order in which they served.
The coins could become popular collectors items, like the quarters, and might also encourage people to replace paper dollars with coins. Dollar coins would save the government as much as $500 million a year because they last longer than paper dollars, according to a 2002 report from the General Accounting Office (news - web sites), the investigative arm of Congress. But consumers have so far been unwilling to scrap their $1 bills, and efforts to cut paper dollars from circulation have been met by stiff resistance.
The new dollar coins, which according to tradition will not include presidents who are alive, would replace the highly unsuccessful Sacagawea coins, which were introduced in January 2000, for the life of the nearly 10-year program. The coin legislation must pass both chambers of Congress. The legislators are proposing the Statue of Liberty appear on the reverse side of the coins.
"The dollar coin is clearly one that has not taken off the way it should," Castle says. "We need to do something to really energize it and my sense is this will."
Millions have been collecting the state quarters since the program's start in 1999. As of the halfway mark of the program, the U.S. Mint made about $4 billion from the quarters. When people collect coins, they take them out of circulation. The Federal Reserve (news - web sites), which circulates the money, then has to buy more coins from the Mint. The Fed pays the full face value of the money, giving the Mint a profit.
Castle hopes the presidential dollars would have a similar effect. The Sacagaweas, also known as "Golden Dollars" for the coins' color, have cost 13 cents to 31 cents to produce, depending on volume.
Mint director Henrietta Holsman Fore said her agency was ready to work with Congress. "It helps Americans to reconnect with their country," she said.
Other details about the proposal:
• The Mint would make commemorative, $10 "bullion" coins of the presidents' spouses.
• Grover Cleveland will be on two coins because he served non-consecutive terms.
• The dollar coins would retain the gold color and be the same size as the Sacagawea.
The legislation comes as the government begins circulating nickels commemorating the Lewis and Clark expedition and the Louisiana Purchase.
I'm thinking this isn't a real well-thought-out solution...
Around our house they are known as "Squawbucks".
And because he was so fat that it takes two coins to get all of him.
That being the case, William Howard Taft will probably have to be on a $5 coin.
Big mistake, the same as the others.
If they're going to make $1 coins, make them the same size as the old ones. At least you don't get them mixed up with quarters. Las Vegas will love them!
"Squaw is not an English word. It is a phonetic rendering of an Algonkian word, or morpheme, but it does not translate to mean any particular part of a woman's anatomy".
What was more beautiful that the Standing/Sitting and Walking Liberty coins?
(Rhetorical question - the Saint Gaudins Double Eagle)
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Only to learn 25 years hence they would have been ahead to invest the value of those quarters in common hardware like nuts, bolts and washers. The hardware will appreciate, the quarters will depreciate. I expect the same will occur with dollar coins.
The dollar coins would retain the gold color and be the same size as the Sacagawea.
Yuck!
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