Presidential Train Wreck

Coin News Update reports that there are now over two (2) Billion Presidential dollars minted since 2007 (not to mention another 150 Million Native American dollars since 2009) Many of these dollars are likely still sitting on the shelf.

Although the 2010 Presidential mintage (321 Million) is one third of the 2007 mintage, it's probably way more than will ever be used.

Question: Since the Mint is required by law to keep making these things, at what point do you think they will start melting current dollars to make room for the new ones?

 

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Leave it to congress to force something on us (or the mint) that will be seldom used. What should have been or should be done is to stop printing $1 bills. That way these coins would actually be in widespread use in commerce.

 

I have yet to see one outside of the ones I'm collecting. Wow, 2 billion. This program has taken off like a lead balloon.

 

I believe they will find a market for them somehow, like they did with the early over-produced Sac Dollars in Ecuador, before they melt them. The thing is, they are already minted and monetized, so they're not hurting the mint, but the reserve is storing a ton of 'em. Also I think, at some point in the next 2 years, mintage is going to drop to current Native American Dollar levels and they will become semi-noncirculating, just like the N A Dollar and Half Dollar are now.

 

It's like the Morgan dollar all over again. The mint is just destined to repeat failures for eternity.
Guy

 

My first thought at hearing the 2 billion number was that they are being stockpiled for the eventual replacement of the paper dollar. But google comes up with a very shaky number of 800 billion one dollar bills in circulation. So either my premise is off or it is just the beginning of the stockpiling required for the change over.

The second thought is that some company or industry (bribed) contributed enough to the election campaign of some congressmen to get this massive mintage requirement written into law for their benefit and at the expense of the public.

I'm leaning toward the second.

 

The Presidential/NA Dollars are 88.5% copper. I see that the annual worldwide demand for copper is 18.9 Million metric tonnes. If my calculations are correct, the total copper content of all the Presidential and NA dollars minted since 2007 comes to 16,181 metric tonnes...pretty much a drop in the bucket (less than 1/10th of 1%).

 

I don't think it's the Mint so much as the law, that Congress created, that requires the Mint to produce these coins even though the American public will not ever use unless the dollar bill is phased out. Congress just sees the big "savings" that a dollar coin has over a bill but refuse to create a law to stop printing dollar bills. The UK did it with their pound note and yes the public initially complained but after time it became routine to use the pound coin instead. I hope we get to that point one day

 

Just plain dumb.

The public didn't really want to use these dollar coins! Look at the first year of the Sac Dollar! Now to make more of these dollars, that will only really be used for collector purposes.

Why can't they understand this?

I say they need to start melting them to make room for more of these (worthless in my eyes) dollars, NOW!

 

Our stupid gov at work. STOP PRINTING ONES! It's simple, problem solved.

 

Your reasoning is sound but that doesn't rule out the possibility. The precedent would be the pittman act of 1918 that resulted in the peace dollar. Mining interests got a law passed requiring the government to buy only their silver at a price the government didn't want to pay to produce a coin they didn't want to make even though silver was plentiful on the world market. That doesn't mean I'm right but it does mean it is possible.

 

There are not quite 10 billion $1 bills in circulation. But judging by the experience of Canada when they replaced their $1 bill by a $1 coin, we'll need two to three times as many coins as bills to do the same job (because the coins spend a larger fraction of their time idle in change jars, vending machine coin hoppers, &c.). So figure 25 billion $1 coins if the paper $1 was no longer available.

If the Mint was really planning on building up a stockpile of that size, they'd be producing the coins much more quickly. With the circulating coin denominations having quite low production in 2009 and 2010 due to the weak economy, the Mint has plenty of surplus capacity; they could probably turn out a billion of each Presidential dollar without trouble. But in fact they seem to be producing the smallest mintages they can get away with under the law.... So no, it doesn't look like anyone's planning to discontinue the $1 bill any time soon.

 

Stop printing the one dollar note.
Stockpile disappears.
Problem fixed.

I'm hopeful that the "Coin Modernization, Oversight and Continuity Act of 2010" will be used as a means to actually accomplish this.
We might also get a two dollar coin and a usable 50 cent piece out of it too.
Hey, I can dream, can't I?

 

How many people here complaining have ever purchased $1 presidential rolls and put them into circulation themselves!? Everybody here knows about them and wants them to be in circulation. I'm just wondering how many people here have made the effort to acquire them and spread them around?
I'll be the first to admit that I have not. The only reason being is that it's an extra step that I don't have to take so I just haven't. I get money from ATMs and never go into the bank so I almost never have the opportunity to ask for rolls anyway.

I'm thinking I will go to the bank and get some to spend though. Somebody has to ask for them and spend them to get them out there. If we aren't doing it, nobody else will be.

 

i have done that. and i also ask cashiers if they have them instead of $1 bills. i'm just doing what i can to help circulate them.

 

First off, when you say $1 presidential rolls, are you talking about rolls from the mint?! That would be quite the loss of money if people consistently bought those for whatever high price the mint has them at, and then uses them for face value!
(If you are talking about buying a roll at a local bank, then I see what you are saying) (Although my banks have NEVER had them)


Additionally, I could care less about them. Like I am going out of my way to circulate them?
I am content with using the $1 bill.
(I do not like the way our government prints money at will, and how much debt we have, but even though the $1 paper note doesn't really mean anything neither does the $1 coin.)

With that being said, for me it is about convenience. 20 $1 bills is more convenient to carry around than 20 $1 coins.

 

If the US currency is ever removed and ressiued (10 old dollars = one new dollar), then the dollar coin will have it's day. They're metal so there is a theoretical limit to their production and it is doubtful they will be debased. There have been many African countries that have done what I have described. Coins were not affected.

 

I got 250 Sacagaweas from the mint for $250, and spent them all. I'll do it again if I can scrape up another $250.

 

Me too, after the holidays I might. I still working off a stack of $2 bills and a bunch of clad halves.

 

I thought a thread titled 'Presidential Train Wreck' was going to be about something else entirely. :devil: