Free Republic

Talk about pennies from heaven. A potential shortage of coins in the United States could mean all those pennies in your piggy bank could be worth five times their current value soon, says an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Sharply rising prices of metals such as copper and nickel have meant the face value of pennies and nickels are worth less than the material that they are made of, increasing the risk that speculators could melt the coins and sell them for a profit. Such a risk spurred the U.S. Mint last month to issue regulations limiting...

If the penny were eliminated, rounding prices to the nearest nickel would not cost consumers extra money, according to a new study by Robert M. Whaples, professor of economics at Wake Forest University. Whaples, an expert on the history of the U.S. economy, recently presented his findings at the John Locke Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. "It's time to eliminate the penny," said Whaples, who estimates that the United States loses roughly $900 million a year on penny production and handling. In a penny-free market place, what consumers pay at the cash register would be rounded to the nearest...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- New dollar coins featuring all 37 of the nation's dead presidents will begin rolling out of the U.S. Mint in 2007 under a bill Congress is sending to President Bush. Lawmakers hope the coins - and an accompanying $10 gold piece for collectors featuring former first ladies - will be a big money raiser for the government like the 50-state quarter program. They also hope the dollar pieces will rev up interest in the Sacagawea dollars, which have been little-used. The quarter program had raked in roughly $4 billion in revenues by its midpoint, said Becky Bailey,...

NEW YORK (AFP) - The American 20-dollar 1933 "double eagle" is one of the rarest and most valuable coins in the world. Joan Langbord of Philadelphia found 10 of them, and now the US government has taken them away. Compounding Langbord's sense of loss -- a double eagle auctioned in 2002 sold for a world-record 7.6 million dollars -- is the fact that it was her own decision to inform the government of her discovery that led to their confiscation. The 10 coins were hidden for decades in the possessions of Langbord's father, Israel Switt, who ran an antique jewelry...

PHILADELPHIA - The U.S. Mint seized 10 Double Eagle gold coins from 1933, among the rarest and most valuable coins in the world, that were turned in by a jeweler seeking to determine their authenticity. Joan S. Langbord plans a federal court lawsuit to try to recover them, her attorney, Barry H. Berke, said Wednesday. Langbord found the coins among the possessions of her father, longtime Philadelphia jeweler Israel Switt, who had acknowledged having sold some of the coins decades ago. She now operates her father's business. David Lebryk, acting director of the Mint, had announced in a news release...

POLS PUSH FOR MINT BAN By LINDSAY POWERS Sun May 22, 4:17 AM ET Political momentum is building for safer candy. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton told The Post she is raising the issue with the Food and Drug Administration and the Consumer Product Safety Commission early this week. She called the deaths, just two days apart, of Jocelys Santiago, 5, and Ashley Morrison, 4, "completely preventable." City Councilwoman Christine Quinn, who chairs the Health Committee, is introducing legislation this week to ban large, round candy. She also wants a council hearing on the subject before schools let out for summer....

Millions of nickels stolen from Fed Seen anyone cashing nickels like crazy? By Mark Potter, Correspondent NBC News Updated: 7:27 p.m. ET Jan. 14, 2005 MIAMI - The trail begins at the Federal Reserve building in East Rutherford, N.J.. In mid-December, a large tractor-trailer is loaded up and heads south, bound for the Fed in New Orleans. Sealed in back of the truck is $180,000 worth of newly minted U.S. nickels. They are in 900 bags and weigh nearly 23 tons. That's 3.6 million nickels — and soon they would just disappear. "Somebody actually went out and stole 3.6 million...

During the week, I accumulate about $3 worth of change in my trouser pocket. It mainly serves my kids and their needs for milk money and so forth. Toward the end of the week, I start to spend down the change, counting out large and precise amounts of it at stores. I've begun to notice something. In the entire pile, I seldom find a nickel. Look, here is today's change, scattered on my desk: 8 quarters, 11 dimes, 8 pennies -- and one nickel. That's absolutely typical. I began to ask around. Conclusion? Many retail change-makers are such numskulls they...

FLORENCE - The company that will put the likeness of Strom Thurmond's daughter, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, on a commemorative coin is the Confederate States Mint.The irony of a mint with the Confederate name producing a coin honoring Washington-Williams, who revealed last December she was the out-of-wedlock child of a man who spent much of his political career fighting integration, is not lost on the company's owner, Florence businessman Gene Brown."I think that's actually going to make the coin more valuable," said Brown, who owns the mint with Thurmond relative Bruce Elrod.The mint was the old Confederate Mint in Ridgeway.Brown said...

U.S. Mint Rolls Out New Nickels By JEANNINE AVERSA ASSOCIATED PRESS Today: March 02, 2004 at 15:35:41 PST WASHINGTON (AP) - Millions of shiny nickels sporting their first new look in 66 years are being shipped to the Federal Reserve, the supplier of the nation's cash, officials of the U.S Mint said Tuesday The new nickels - which honor the 1803 Louisiana Purchase on the back but retain Thomas Jefferson on the front - should start showing up in cash registers in several weeks, Mint officials said. A total of 180 million new nickels have been sent to the Federal...

President Bush's 2005 budget called on the two agencies responsible for making the nation's money to explore a possible merger. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing makes greenbacks and the United States Mint produces the country's coins. Both agencies are part of the Treasury Department. "Treasury, BEP and the Mint will conduct and deliver a study to Congress by July 1, 2004, regarding options to merge and/or streamline operations by consolidating certain functions and sharing costs," according to budget documents provided by the Treasury Department on Monday. Messages left at both agencies seeking comment were not immediately returned. Any merger...

With the state quarters set to end thier run when the Hawaii quarter is minted at the end of 2008, will that be the end of the Washington-head US quarter? What does our treasury have in store for this coin for 2009 and beyond? Well, I dunno, but I'd like to suggest replacing George's bust with that of the father of our Constitution, James Madison. Washington will forever be on the $1 bill (which isn't counterfeited that much so not worthy of redesign) and will thus remain highly visible as our most common script. Thomas Jefferson is on the nickel...

America's paper money, the venerable greenback, is no longer going to appear all green. Bills aren't about to turn psychedelic, but they are getting a tad more colorful, part of a broader effort to thwart sophisticated counterfeiters.First in line for the government's money makeover is the $20 bill, featuring Andrew Jackson. The $20 bill is the most-counterfeited note in the United States and the second most-commonly used bill behind the $1.The Treasury Department's Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which makes the nation's paper currency, planned to debut the new $20 in a public showing Tuesday.One of the most noticeable changes...

Posted on Thu, Apr. 24, 2003 Nickel Makeover to Commemorate 2 Events REBECCA CARROLL Associated Press WASHINGTON -The nickel is getting a makeover. The back side of the new 5-cent coin will commemorate the bicentennial of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase and the 1804-06 Lewis and Clark expedition. The U.S. Mint hopes to issue the nickels late this year or in early 2004. In 2006, nickels will return to a depiction of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's Virginia home, although the image will not necessarily replicate the version on today's coin. Lawmakers from Virginia pushed for and received assurance that the coin design...

The politically correct Christmas time advertisements of the Royal Canadian Mint, which rendered a traditional carol as the "Twelve Days of Giving," were offensive to nearly half the people who saw them, or 44%, according to a poll conducted for the mint.But since most people surveyed said they were unaware of the $175,000 televised ad campaign, the mint has concluded it was basically a success. Along with Toronto City Hall's short-lived use of the term "Holiday Tree" for its decorated conifer late last year, the mint ads drew condemnation from around the country for denying the Christian history of the...

THE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICASOLD BY ORDER OF THE UNITED STATES MINTTHE 1933 DOUBLE EAGLE Designer: Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907) Obverse: LIBERTY; in lower right field, 1933 above designers monogram ASG. Liberty striding forward wearing a flowing gown and with her hair blowing in the wind. Her left foot on a rock, at the base of which lies an oak branch. In her right hand she holds a lighted torch aloft and before her; in her extended left hand she holds an olive branch. To the lower left, a small representation of the Capitol building, behind which the...