Interesting story on possible new US coins/currency.

The coins at the US mint are starting to cost more than their worth again due to metal prices. Looks like another re-design may be on the horizon?

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/get-ready-for-new-nickels-and-dimes-192906687.html

 

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What the hell is 39 Million $ to the Government - they can spend that overnight on new office furniture for the IRS

 

The government will probably still studying the idea when half of us are in the grave.

 

Realistically, I think that the Mint will eventually eliminate the penny. But until then, they may look at ways of reducing its mass like what the beverage industry did to the aluminum can - they found ways to optimize the can's geometry by reducing aluminum by 1% or so. That may not sound like a lot but when you're producing millions of them, it is.

Along those lines, perhaps the US Mint may switch from high relief to deep incuse, and not just for pennies! As one member recently noted on here, the Mint has already been reducing the relief heights on coins year after year, so it may not be too dubious a scenario.

 

Ugh. Please don't let it be unplated steel.

 

True enough, the Federal government alone spends over 10 billion dollars a day. That comes out to about 39 million dollars every 5 minutes.

 

I'm calling a foul on this.

Most metal prices including the majority of base metals have actually FALLEN instead of risen within the last couple of years. I struggle to understand why it costs more simply due to the rise of metal prices.

If this is the case, I would like to know what metal prices have gone up.

 

I guess that porcelain would be even more expensive?

 

If the Treasury Department isn't interested in saving 180 Million a year by eliminating the dollar bill they sure as shoot aren't going to give a 39 million dollar savings any thought what so ever.

 

It's just another way of making the American people feel they are doing their job.

 

You want to redesign/overhaul US coinage?


Here's my idea for US coinage. (This idea won't be accepted, not in a million years)


Get rid of the cent, the nickel, the quarter (yep), and the one dollar coin.

Also, get rid of the $1.00, $2.00, $5.00, $10.00, and $50.00 paper/rag bills.


US Coinage should consist of the following:

Dime (worth $0.10) Stick with current size and cupronickel clad composition (this will be the smallest denomination)

Half dollar (worth $0.50) Downsize from current dimensions to a reeded edge coin with a clad composition of 21mm diameter

Two and a half dollar coin (worth $2.50) This coin should be a toothed edge cupronickel coin with a bronze plug of 27mm diameter

Ten dollar coin (worth $10.00) This coin should be a CP grade titanium coin with a constellation of ceramic plugs and tooled edge to minimize counterfeiting, diameter 30mm


Paper/rag/plastic bills will have three denominations: $20.00, $100.00, and $1000.00


Remove all depictions of actual people from all coins and notes. The scene/design on each coin or note will be created by a single artist. No design by committee. Anyone can submit a design for a coin. Designs will be voted on by all US citizens.

Designs will be changed every five years.

 

@NeonBlurb, the vending industry would be hunting you down with pitchforks. And I think 5 years is too often to change the designs. I'd like to see a requirement of anywhere from 20-35 years in between total redesigns (obverse and reverse).

 

Electronics being what they are, it is a lot easier to design a module for vending machines that can authenticate coins of varying sizes and denominations now than it used to be.

These days, you can have a module the size of a deck of cards which can measure, thickness, diameter, inductance, mass, albedo, and a myriad of other parameters of every coin that passes through it.

And such a coin authentication machine can be remotely programmable. It really doesn't matter what size or composition coins Uncle Sam comes up with. Just program the necessary parameters into the coin authentication module. All modern vending machines have a lot of electronic connectivity anyway because they are set up for credit card transactions.

Coin authentication really isn't a giant conundrum.

I could go 30 years between redesigns but let's not go for a century with the same couple of dudes leering back at us when we pull change out of our pockets.

 

Sorry but you have missed the point the US Government and Credit Card companies have been working on for years. Get rid of all cash and coins, use plastic.

 

I can't argue with that. It's a lot easier for Uncle Sam and businesses to track our spending if we have to use plastic.

 

Well, while some conspiracy theorists would have you believe just that scenario, it'll never happen.

Unless the rest of the World follows suit.

As it sits right now, the US Treasury department is light years behind what the rest of the industrialized nations are doing which happens to NOT be getting rid of cash.

Too often, folks forget that there are literally millions of folks out there that have no credit cards and no debit cards. They conduct business in cash. This also happens to occur in the rest of the World as well.

The ONLY possible way that something such as this could occur would be for a Global Revolution towards a One World Government. And the possibility of that happening is exactly related to the possibility of the US Government getting rid of all coins and currencies.

 

There is also that little matter of the banksters taking a cut out of all plastic transactions.

I am about to find a new bank, one of the ones I deal with act like I am asking for mulled wine when I ask them for cash.

"Cash? cash? whats that? wouldn't you like to have a nice little debit card, see you can deposit your checks with a mobile phone and we can finally fire all those warm blooded human teller beings that keep eating into our profits.

 

Any denomination less than a dime should just be eliminated. A dime has the purchasing power of a 1960s cent. Then make a circulating half so you could make less quarters. How many times do you get change as 2 or 3 quarters when you have change more than 50c? Quite often. Just a bit ago I went out to by cat food for the black cats and got 74 cents in change, two quarters, two dimes and four cents. It would cost less over all to just give out a half dollar and two dimes and scratch the cents.

BTW I believe the original study into composition changes for lower value coins was commissioned during the last presidential administration and has just dragged on and on and on.

 

I just laugh at this. Somehow we went from producing gold coins for circulation at the beginning of the 20th century to practically having to resort to producing plastic Chuck E Cheese tokens at the beginning of the 21st, in order to save peanuts (by Fed govt. standards). Sad but yet comical.

 

If you mean since Bush, no. The commission studying composition change has been active since 2010. Their first report in 2012 said they needed more time to study the problem. Their second report in 2014 said there was no material that would allow the cent to be profitable (something all of us could have told them in 2010.) and that it might be a good idea to switch to steel for the other coins. Their third report for 2016 hasn't been released to the public yet. What I'm curious about is how many millions of dollar we have spent so far on this commission that is coming up with conclusions we could have given them YEARS ago for free?