Presidential Dollar Coin Production Suspended

You are correct. If the machine is from before 1979 and the coin mechanism has never been upgraded or replaced in the past 32 years then it won't take dollar coins. But machines like that are few and far between.

Not likely. You would have to show the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in assets in the budget. No they will simply be stored and slowly released to satisfy demand from those areas that have major public transit that uses them. Drawdown is about 6 million coins a month for that purpose. Just as they did with the SBA dollars from 1979 to 1999. At that time they had about a billion of them in storage and the drawdown was 5 million coins a month. Took twenty years to consume them all. Today we have more than that in storage, but the drawdown is greater so it is still going to take twenty years to get rid of them unless they stop the dollar note. And if they don't do anything else we can expect them to issue a new small dollar around 2031. Maybe by then they will realize they need to drop the dollar note (Which by then will have the purchasing power of today's cent.)

 

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:foot-mouth:Yup!!!.:devil:
http://www.cointalk.com/t196591/

 

All before 1979? I doubt it, I don't recall most machines even taking SBA dollars, most vendors didn't upgrade their machines then. And why is it that the Coinco 9300 just started accepting both SBA and the other Dollar coins well past year 2000 with major upgrades according to their press releases? With that in mind, I'd say only vending machines that have been around in the past 10 years are equipped to accept dollars at the flip of a switch, all others had to be upgraded more than likely.

 

It was high time the US Mint did this, talk about wasting precious resources on this program. Now would be a good time to focus their attention on another 25th ASE "home run" product and not spend ungodly taxpayer money on gimmick releases like the presidential dollars and the national park quarters. Do more silver & gold bullion varieties much like the Royal Canadian Mint is doing. That's just my three cents

 

In 79 the government did work with the vending machine manufactures to get them to help with the acceptance of the SBA. All the machines made after 1979 had mechanisms that COULD accept the dollar coins (they came from the factory set to reject them but changing the settings to accept them only required flipping a switch). Machines made before then would not accept them unless the owners upgraded the mechanisms. I would suspect that there are not a lot of old machines left, and even if there are I would be surprised if the mechanisms have not needed replacing in thirty years of use.

 

I'm not sure what you are talking about. let me explain and if you have different info, plese post a link to that information.

Virtually all vending machine coin mechanisms made from 1979 onward can accept small dollar coins (SBA, Sacagawea, Presidential). They shipped most of them with the tiny switch set to "$ No ACCEPT" and you simply had to flip it to "$ ACCEPT". Statring in mid 2000 (I called them about this in May 2000) they started shipping them ALL with the $ coin feature turned on, since they had been getting hundreds of calls from vending operators who had no manuals and they were in turn being asked by their customers sinc ethe new Golden Dollar had just come out.

If they added a sticker to the front of the machine it would have been nice. Many Pepsi machines had the sticker added, but other operators may or may not have added the sticker.

 

Of course this is assuming that the 25th Anniversary Set isn't gimmicky? Or even the rest of the gold and silver commemorative coins?

Regardless of what the pieces say, none are really legal tender unless you're an absolute bonehead.

 

Hmmmm. The Vending Machine Lobby is just blowing smoke since they've already converted or produced a good many machines to accept $1 and $5 dollar bills. Those bill readers can't be cheap so I don't understand where ANY argument would be regarding costs to address $1 coins.

 

You'd be surprised how many boneheads are out there spending things like that

 

Post some examples.

 

Coins cost 1/6 to process than paper dollars. And if the paper money validator accepts multiple denominations, they must be seperated which adds more cost.

 

Some people are confused by the designation of "Native American" dollar versus the "Sacagawea dollar". The series as a whole with the obverse design of Sacagawea began in 2000, and WAS minted for general circulation, to the tune of 1.3 billion coins in 2000 alone. The issue was also struck with intent of general circulation in 2001, with a total of 130 million coins struck. In 2002, the production was cut back significantly, and for years 2002-2008 the coins were only available via mint sets or via direct ship orders from the US Mint. Mintages during these 7 years ranged from 3.5 million to around 8 million annually.

In 2009, the Sacagawea dollar was redesigned and renamed to the "Native American" dollar series. The obverse design remained the same, except for the date and the mint mark were moved to the edge lettering. The reverse was to become an annually changing design dedicated to differing Native American related themes. In 2009, the production of these dollars increased significantly, and 70 millions coins were minted in 2009 and 80 million were minted in 2010. Most of this increase in production was likely because of the bizarre mandate that 20% of all $1 coins must be Native American dollars.

Most serious collectors of the series refer to all of this series as "Native American dollars" or as "Sacagawea dollars" and do not differentiate between the years 2000-2008 (eagle reverse) versus the current "commemorative" type series (2009-2011). Thus, I believe your statement that the Native American coins were not made for general circulation to be misleading. Based on the mintages in 2000 and 2001 alone, there are somewhere almost 1.5 billion Sacagawea dollars...and I haven't seen them in circulation!!!

 

Lately when I have been getting the CWR of dollar coins, Usually half the roll are SAC/NA dollars. Or I'd get a roll of an entire President, but then I would trade that CWR for a BWR.

 

Can you link to such information that "ALL" vending machines shipped or produced after 1979 accept small dollar coins? You'll have to excuse me and my skepticism especially since I read where Coinco had a news release announcing their new 9300 series changer that "now accepts SBA and the new dollar coins, the NA dollar". If all accepted dollar coins after 1979, why would one of the major manufacturers of such change makers start accepting small dollars in the mid-2000's and make it the primary reason for their press release on their product?

 

Just pointing out that "coin counting machines" and "vending machines" are two very different beasts. I know nothing about either, but the differences between them could be substantial.

 

I cannot provide links back in time of manuals of the old coin mechs, but they all had dollar coin capability. They could accept and drop them into the coin box. Newer machines also had a fourth tube to hold dollar coins to use as change for larger bills.

As i mentioned, they got a LOT of phone calls asking about their changers and dollar coins as most end users had no idea what features were already built in and had lost their manuals. Advertising the dollar coin capability makes the item seem more capable as if it was a new feature.

Perhaps one of those internet archive sites has old versions of the older coin mech manuals online?

All i know is what i remember from dealing with this issue since the early 1980's when i got invovled with getting the dollar coin feature activated on vending machines at the huge company where I worked. The vending people initially insisted it could not be done, but I got the manual and showed them and made them open a machine with me standing there, and I pointed to the small switch and had them flip it. *poof* it accepted SBA dollars. They were amazed and flipped that switch on all their other machines.

i repeated this over the years as new vendors came in and installed their own machines until 1980, when the mid-year change to the mechanisms occurred. At that point, they were shipped from the coin mech factory with the feature turned on.

 

Well I for one do differentiate between the two series. You could go into a bank and get a roll of Sacagawea dollars because they were considered circulation strikes. You currently buy the Native American dollars from the mint since they are collector coins. The Native American Series are not available at the banks because they are not circulation coins. There is a big difference even how they were released to the public. The confusion comes from people who do not separate the series. The mint sells collector coins the banks have circulation coins. They don't flip flop sales between the two.

 

You are free to differentiate the series however you'd like; I have collected these for years and neither of the two main registry sites (PCGS and NGC) differentiate between the 2000-2008 series coins and the more recent 2009-2011 coins. I am in NO way suggesting these companies are the determining factors of a "series", but I have never seen a type set distinction between these years either. In addition, such items as Whitman folders group together the eagle reverse coins with the 2009-present coins. Again, you are allowed to think of them however you'd like, but most people don't think of them as different series. (I retract the pink text, when presented with new information -- I am not above changing my mind publicly )

One other thing, you state that Native American dollars "were available through the Mint in rolls and bags and Mint Sets only...so they are not affected by this suspension and they will continue to be produced as usual." That is partially true. While the mechanism of their production and release will remain the same, the numbers of Native American dollars will likely decrease substantially, as the only reason they were minted in large numbers in 2009-2011 was because of the mandate that they account for 20% of all minted $1 coinage. Thus, I think it's unjust to suggest a drop from 70-80 million coins per year to probably 3-5 million coins per year is "not affected".

 

By "not affected", this statements refers to whether the mandate also umbrellaed the Native American coins, which it did not; not the production figures as you cited. My post #93 even states that production could be less.