Hi Everyone, http://news.coinupdate.com/bill-seeks-changes-to-bullion-and-collectible-coin-requirements-4770/ Just read this article. Interesting read especially the part about silver coins have no less than 90% silver. Would be cool get the silver proof sets with 99.99% silver!!
Why? Is that extra 10% REALLY that important to you? Looking at hoarding silver proof dimes, quarters, and halves in your IRA and they need to be .999 fine for that?
Why not have the extra silver? Especially if having it, would yield savings to the Mint, as the article indicates. Seems like a win-win situation to me.
Savings maybe on planchet production, but I doubt there would be any consumer savings. In fact, I'd expect them (mint) to charge a lot more for the products.....
This sounds like legislation out of a comedy program like Veep, something almost insanely trivial to waste congressional time on. Have they nothing better to do? Hands up anyone who can't think of something better they could be doing. Right. I see no hands.
I have read about a similarly proposed bill in the past. The general thrust is that 90% fineness is so "unusual." "Nobody" uses it anymore. Hardly. I have two brand-spanking new March of Dimes dollars with 2015 dates in 90% silver sitting right next to me as I type this. Ninety percent fineness was nearly uniform on all silver US coins from 1837-1964, early trimes being one exception, War nickels of 1942-45, another. The national legal silver standard was reinstated in 1982 for the first modern commemorative halves and then migrated to the post-1982 commemorative silver dollars. It was logically employed for the silver proof sets since 1992. It should have been considered for a silver Sacagawea dollar in 2000, but that is whole different story. What I have a big problem with is the potential for Congress to weaken its documented constitutional authority over coinage specifications, weights and measures and transferring it to the executive branch. James Madison would be rolling over.
