I was gifted today a 1/2 ounce 2015 gold panda. I love the coin but one thing I have a problem with is no weight or purity on the coin. I've done a little reading on why and a few people claim that in the near future most gold and silver coins will use the metric system....But that doesn't explain the lack of no weight or purity at all on the 2015 Pandas. Opinions please?
http://www.coinworld.com/insights/2...ector-coins-lack-inscriptions-for-weight.html I like my bullion with weight, metal and fineness on it. TC
A local coinshop I frequent got one of these in brass,so I'd be VERY wary of buying any from now on if I were you!!!!
I have a whole box full of fakes from China (1c to $1 to gold & silver) courtesy of people sending them to me to make sure they were real; way too any to ever buy any coins or bullion "made in China".
They probably will. Putting the gram weight on coins, may as well be written in Chinese as far as most Americans are concerned. The PTB tried to push the metric system down our throats back in the 60s so we'd "use the same system of measurement as everyone else in the world" ... you can see half a century later how successful they were. Americans are a fiercely independent and defiant group towards the PTB who try to force us to be like everyone else.
I find this site to have the biggest American bias out of all coin and bullion forums....Most other sites you won't find such a hate for Pandas or love for ASE. Now the real question is why do the Portland Trail Blazers care about the metric system so much?
I happen to like Pandas as well as most other world bullion. I tend to avoid bullion Maple Leafs, Britannias and Philharmonics, but that is due to quality issues I have had with them. I sense the same thing you do and I think it has to do with a sense of nationalism. In some cases, though, it may even be xenophobia. Given most of the members here are from the U. S., it would make sense there is a bias toward the ASE. Likewise, I think Canadians would have a bias toward the Maple Leaf, Australians toward the Kookaburra and so on and so on. In some cases, if there is a hatred of a particular coin, I think it is due to deeper feelings toward a particular country. I don't know the demographic composition of other sites, but I wouldn't be surprised if the U. S. member component was smaller.
The metric system is actually easier to use. You just multiply or divide by 10, 100 or 1000. By contrast, the system we use is really silly when you think about it. There is no instinctive relationship between an inch and a foot and a yard and a mile. Also, we already buy soda in liters, wine in milliliters, aspirin in milligrams and bullets in millimeters. The metric system is already a part of our lives. Look at the label of just about any product you buy and it will include the metric equivalent. So, I would say they have been very successful.
I realize how the metric system works ... I spent several years of my time in school in a British school system. It's quite healthy to have differences of opinion and I do have one over this subject. The metric system is an easy design but one that, which I still maintain, Americans stubbornly refuse to embrace in spite of the few examples you give. The fact that medicines are in mg/ml is not a new thing in this debate as this was common back in the early 20th century, and even earlier in this country. It was something people thought of as "something doctors, nurses and druggists had to deal with as part of their profession". Had the doctors required patients to go home and take 5 ml of cough syrup instead of a teaspoon of it, or 250 mg of powdered meds every four hours instead of one pill they would have had a revolt. Today they are GRADUALLY getting new mothers to use metric measurements in giving their children meds, but they have to include in every box of Children's Tylenol a syringe-looking device which is clearly marked (ml) to draw up the liquid in. But without this device to aid in the gradual "education" I believe you'd find a large-scale push back from these consumers if the instructions were the same without the device.. Likewise, the fact that colas use to be sold in 6 oz glass bottles in the 30's, 40's & 50's, was no big leap in any consumer's mind when colas were sold in 33.8 oz (1 litre) glass bottles in the 60's-70's, or, now to being sold in 2 litre plastic bottles today; it's is still JUST a bottle, and people can see exactly how much they're getting. But you will find many people who would balk if you tried selling them gasoline by the liter, or, if they buy a pint of whipping cream for grandma's recipe will it come in the US pint, the normal metric equivalent to the US pint, or the larger UK metric pint? So, although getting Americans to accept the metric system has made a few "baby steps" toward common usage in America, it is not widely used or accepted by the majority of Americans. If the PTB keep pushing Americans to use metric measurements at the same pace they have over the last century, metric use may be commonly used in everyday commerce by the 22nd century in America ... but I wouldn't bet on it.
