Weren't there supposed to be new security features in the 2021 Eagles?

Hi all – In 2019 and 2020, there was a lot of coverage about how the upcoming new silver and gold Eagles (2021 Type 2) were going to introduce new security features. Did the US Mint change plans? The new coins don't have any noteworthy security features. I've heard of something to do with the reeded edge, but that doesn't seem significant.

The announcements all spoke of features, plural. Are there any other features? There are no radial lines (see Maples), no undulating lines (see Britannias), no micro-features or laser engraving (see both Maples and Britannias), and no optical scanning-based technology like the Royal Canadian Mint's Bullion DNA or PAMP Suisse's Veriscan.

I don't see any features. See the Britannia below for contrast – it's loaded with security features:

2021 Silver Eagle Type 2 by Sunbird posted Oct 29, 2021 at 5:10 PM

2022 Silver Britannia by Sunbird posted Oct 29, 2021 at 5:10 PM

 

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missing reeding is all that I'm aware of

 

There's a slug of radioactive Cesium-137 inside the planchet so you can check them with a geiger counter. It's a secret, so you didn't hear it from me.




(just kidding)

 

A half-life of thirty years, in an attempt to track the dollar's value?

 

It took me a minute, but I see what you did there.

 

See now that's how I know you're fibbing. If you said the half-life was 4 years to coincide with the dollars value I'd believe you.

 

It's a government product, they'd use government numbers.



(Doubling in 30 years also works for 1931-1961. For 1961-1991, not so much. The seventies were a bad time.)

 

You think the 70's were bad? The '20's are going to make you wish you were back in the 70's.

 

We'll see. I heard the same thing about the 80s, the 90s, the 2000s, and especially the 2010s. (TBH, much of the 2010s has made me wish I were back in the 70s -- just not due to monetary issues.)

 

lol

On a sorta related note, they have used the absence of Cs137 to verify some extremely valuable older wines (because they were bottled before the nuclear age). Apparently the Chinese like to knock those off too.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesal...-became-the-smoking-gun-in-wine-fraud-mystery

 

'21's inflation alone is already epic. And it ain't slowing down. Not only the increase in prices across the board, but the supply chain breakdown is just beginning. So 'we'll see' is already upon us.

 

Really? I hadn't seen anything about that. Relatedly, digging into the whole "real" inflation controversy, CPI validity, etc. is on my To-Do list, but it's probably a ways out. I last remember inflation being surprisingly low, when I expected all the emergency cash injections to cause lots of inflation, just from a money supply dynamic.

What struck me was the explosion in the national debt, and the strange lack of concern about it – it's like I missed a memo where we all decided that the national debt no longer mattered, had no utility or meaning as a number. Almost no voter knows what our current debt level is at any point, or is aware of the growth from year to year. It exploded after the banking crisis in 2008, with the purportedly temporary "stimulus" spending, but no one seemed to notice that the federal budget never returned to pre-stimulus levels. That was so strange – it just magically stayed at the much higher level, even with the end of Iraq War spending, and of course the end of the "stimulus". All of the increase was deficit spending, since we had a slim deficit at Time 1 before the crisis (we were converging on a budget surplus as we approached 2008, amazingly, even with the wars). It was a step change in the federal budget to something like $3.5 trillion as the new floor or new normal. So I don't trust that any emergency spending from the past year or two, or upcoming spending, will be temporary, and I don't understand what people think is going to happen as a result.

 

Other than the reeding, the mint didn't say what the other features were, but then if they did, counterfeiters could easily start working on duplicating them, couldn't they? If you can't find any, even under a microscope, then I'd say they did a good job.

 

How would we know as a society that we are transacting in authentic or counterfeit coins if we don't know what to look for? The security features are supposed to alert us.

 

There is the notch on the reeded edge. They also added the AAW signature to the obverse which would be hard to replicate well. The reverse if very well detailed and obverse less detailed, which is going to be hard to replicate also.
Anti counterfeiting measures aren't counterfeit proof, just makes it harder to replicate.

Simply changing the design is enough to slow down counterfeiters.

And there's already really good fakes of the Maple Leaf And Britannia out there.
Give it time, the mint has 35 years of this design and a lot of things they can do over time to keep the counterfeiters on their toes over the years instead of throwing everything at it at once and finding out in a year they have it all figured out.

 

Especially with the Sec of the Treasury saying the way to combat the current high inflation is for the government to dump trillions more dollars into the economy because it would encourage more production.

 

Tell me about it.

 

I'll expect my inflation adjustment to my fixed income in about five years.

 

Have you gone to the supermarket after filling your car with gas lately?

 

~The FED Inflation Rate doesn't include those pesky volatile things like Gas, Meds and Food. They don't affect those on fixed low income at all.~