new dollars

Thats the way I am looking at it as well. The coins interest me so I would collect and not worry so much about the polities of them. I do agree that no one will use them

 

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I have to agree. I said so a year or so ago, and I believe now, this presidential coin series is doomed to faliure.

These coins have no popular interest or support.

The only ones who will benefit are the coin dealers who have access to them thru the Mint. I am sure some of these will be low mintage and command a hefty premium. I also believe all the hefty prices that you WILL SEE for some of these coins will be due to hype by the Mint, and the dealers that have the capital and access to invest the bags of uncirculated coins.

Of course there will be all kinds of proof coins and special mint sets.

 

A $20 coin.... would be sweet, but VERY easy to counterfeit in relation to a bill. The only way higher denomination coins could work is if they had an intrinsic value that was approximate to their legal tender value. That won't work without locking the price of whatever material was used to make the coin (example: Morgan or Peace dollar made to same size and weight as original as a $10 coin, silver half becomes $5 coin, etc... but silver would have to be locked into its current price). With the markets of all commodities changing constantly, that won't work either unless the whole world agrees to go back.

 

We will all have access to them thru the mint. Just like the Sacs today.

 

There is a very very simple answer to this problem of changing commodity prices. Just go back to the original arrangement whereby a dollar represents a specific weight in silver. It doesn't have to be 371.25 grains, as in earlier silver dollars. It can be anything but probably should be some value that is at least as high as the current price of silver just to get off to a logical start. Once a dollar, or $20, or whatever is defined as a WEIGHT of metal, that commodity price can never fluctuate in dollar terms. It wouldn't matter what the rest of the world did and wouldn't be any different from the present system of fluctuating paper currencies.

Mexico is considering [but probably will reject] an equally sound system of reintroducing silver coins by (1) setting the legal tender value of the coin at the current price of silver, (2) periodically revaluing the legal tender value of the coins upward if silver increases in value, but (3) never decreasing the legal tender value of the coins if the price of silver decreases. This would work equally well and would permit the silver coins to coexist with fiat currency since it removes any incentive to melt the coins.

 

All we need to do is look to our canadians experiences. Until the dollar coins in this country are up sized similar to the canadian coins they will never see serious circulation.

 

Its not as easy to mint coins as it is to print paper, even the complex paper of the US twenty, which is counterfited so much at this point that the government has changed the design nearly every year.

After the Lebonese war, Hamas was handing out coutfit US $20s in stacks. The value of the metal is also of import in suppressing counterfiting and I would suggest making the silver 20's more expensive that $20 right from the start and never worry about they price going up. Just keep changing the metal content to reflect a reasonable cost. If people melt them as 10 years, let them melt them.

Also, metal coins can be made in a very advanced design driving minting costs way up until they are definetely not worth minting as counterfiet.

$20 is worthless ANYWAY. Not only will a counterfiting fascist regiegn need to mint the $20 coin, but they'd still need to corner the silver market.

Ruben

 

I agree. until they come up with something that makes you "feel" like you have a dollar and not a quarter, who wants them. well after the washington coin. He is a pretty good lead off hitter.

 

Yes it can and it will. The $ will alway fluctuate according the value of other currancies and never stay static according to the price of silver any more than it would stay static with relationship to a Chevy Camero. The only thing you can not 'fiat' is the value of a commadety to dollars, which is the very thing your proposing.

In your minority opinion....

If they melt coins then just mint new ones from the old coins with less silver in them. The object it to make them not worth counterfieting. Otherwise, who cares from a governments position if they are melted or not. The vast majority of money is blips on a computer, neither paper or coinage.


Ruben

 

Mexico's plan is flawed (in my opinion) in the fact that the value of the coin will have to change with the market price of silver (even/especially if the only direction is up). People will have to keep track of how much the coin is worth today. Silver goes up. The government states the coin's value has risen. How many people will try to take advantage of those who haven't heard yet that the value of the coin rose earlier today? It's only been a few hours after all.

Defining the dollar as a weight of silver once again could make for some interesting price changes of all the products we buy. Silver has tripled in price over the past few years... with some pretty sharp dips and rises along the way. Retailers and wholesalers would be forced to constantly change their prices to reflect the new value.

In theory, yes, but in reality, I don't believe that silver/gold and fiat can exist side by side.

Counterfeiting... is as easy as making dies from an actual coin and producing exact replicas. For any country that has a mint or any private mint, this would not be much of a challenge... no serial numbers, no color change ink, no watermark...

To use silver and have to constantly change the silver content of the coins to reflect an approximate intrinsic/face value would not be a worthwhile undertaking. How do you collect up all the coins that have far exceeded their face value to melt for creating coins with a lower silver content? The problem isn't in a country's citizens hoarding/melting the coins. The profits and the metal remain within that economy. The problem comes when other countries hoard and melt those coins removing the silver from the issuing country's supply (assuming that we're talking only one country making the move back to silver), potentially creating substantial profits for those countries and considerable losses to the country that had put the money into circulation. It's a very different scenario from the issuing of bullion coins which are meant for that very purpose.

I would love to see it happen. The old silver halves are worth nearly $5 in silver, the dollars nearly $10, dimes nearly $1. We switch back to silver and drop a decimal point, and everything is right back where it started. Gas goes from (at the station by me) $2.25 down to $0.23, coffee and a newspaper... $0.15. Of course, your bank account is much smaller as well, but coins are useful again. I just can't see any scheme working without global participation.

The Liberty Reborn silver dollar... that's the new dollar that I'd like to see.

 

Realizing that my silver fantasy will likely never happen, and forced with facing the harsh reality that is our current monetary system, I do intend to build a collection of the presidential dollars simply for the novelty as I have no real love for clad coins... perhaps it will spur a desire to learn more about each of our past presidents. I also intend to spend them as much as I can in my own small attempt to help them gain acceptance in working toward the goal of getting rid of the dollar bill. Though it would be much easier if the government just stopped with all the research and demographics nonsense and just said "We're not printing them anymore. You'll get used to it. We promise."

 

I'm confused, the Sac and the Loon dollar are the same size. The Sac may be just a bit larger (heavier) than the Loon. We would have to "upsize" the dollar by making it even smaller?? And the other Canadian coin are also the sime size but lighter.

Yes Cananda does have a larger size commemorative dollars but they don't circulate. I do agree though that we need to look to their experience. They introduced their small dollar, with a gold color so it wouldn't be confused with a quarter like the SBA was, and they eliminated the paper dollar and THEN it succeeded.

 

I once took a couple of rolls of Sacs to my poker game....... All the players, when they won the pot, kept the Sacs out of any future pots. My hubby had a fit, thinking I was playing with gold coins. ( heh ) At least they don't get taken for quarters like SB does. Myself I enjoy the new quarters and nickles. Have not collected any, yet, but they are nice to look at.

 

Canadian Loonies and the small US dollars are exactly the same size. 26.5mm.