Travis, how about this for a plot element. Criminals infiltrate one of the blank-producing outsourcing companies, and develop a way to produce gold-clad tungsten blanks that coin properly.
When the fake are discovered, it not only made the anti-American criminals billions, but it further destroys the political/economic credibility of the US.
The news sure is good disaster fiction fodder these days, isn’t it?
Yep, I already put that into my notebook of future story plots. I’d have a university student who’s moonlighting in a bullion vault discover the fakes. He thinks his bosses will want to know they’ve been scammed, but quickly finds out that they are all part of the scam, and then people start to die, and the student has to run.