Featured Opinion/Editorial - United States Coinage Needs Overhaul Now!!!

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First off, the seigniorage on four of the six coins is MORE than enough to cover the excess cost of the other two. Second, everyone advocating for a cashless and coin free society might be careful what the wish for because they just might get it. There are ramifications to such things. The legal weed crowd is now finding out, much to their dismay, that taxes are owed to the man on a formerly tax free thing, banks don't want to deal with them due to Federal drug laws and the anti-gun crowd is beginning to talk of revoking CCP's and handing out Federal firearms charges to those patronizing legal weed establishments.

Doing away with cash and going all digital will automatically strip you of what little financial freedom and privacy you have left. Just look what happened to those who lost their entire account balances due to the Target security breach in late 2013. Sure they eventually got their money back but that takes time and effort. There have been dozens of digital data and financial thefts since then. Suppose you owe the govt. or anyone else money? With a few keystrokes they can freeze your accounts until debt is paid. What if you are the victim of mistaken identity? They freeze and even seize your accounts until the mess can be sorted out. In the meantime your mortgage and electric bill payments bounce costing you even more money and time and possibly even your home.

Govt. is about CONTROL and Americans are absolutely insane to be freely giving up and even demanding that govt. take control of more and more of our lives. Govt. never gives back what it takes and no govt. has ever become more benevolent over time. It would behoove us to remember this before willfully giving up something you will never get back.

 

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I don't think that most people even know what's in their pockets. They have no idea that there were coins that had an intrinsic value. They have been using these ersatz coins for so long that they don't realize that as recently as 50 years ago money had actual value. They would be happy to drop the penny, and even the nickel. I am surprised that the government hasn't done it already. Why have a zinc penny? The nickel is the only coin that is worth as much as it's denomination says, so we need to get rid of it! Then a dollar can't be turned in for anything that has real value.

 

my idea would be to switch the cent and nickel to NIFC, push the circulation of half dollars, and get rid of the $1 bill.

the general public would not really miss cents or nickels because they are of such low value and usually just accumulate in jars anyway rather than being re-circulated. If we made them NIFC instead of eliminating them completely, numismatists could still get them by the roll for a little over face value, and they would still be included in mint and proof sets. Doing this would free up two additional cash register slots to accommodate halves and dollars. Vending machine companies would have to convert their coin mechanisms to accept halves, just like they did in the '80s and '90s to accept $1 coins. If the treasury dept. can convince businesses that have large amounts of customers, such as McDonalds and Wal-Mart, to use halves as change, they would probably begin circulating again.

 

Something I'm trying to get my head around is, if we go digital, do we loose the seigniorage since there is no longer the product (cash) nor the institution (mint) to account for it. Also keep in mind that Visa is getting .30 per transaction plus 3% and how does that effect the economy as a whole. I think the obvious solution is to move or loose a decimal point. Mint coins in 0.1, 0.5, 1, 2.5, 5 dollar denominations and start the paper with 10 dollar notes. Retailers will have to round out, but they are doing that anyway.

 

The day they make good old fashioned currency obsolete and go to todays way of the world(plastic cards) ;then I don't care to be at all. Something wrong with that. Ask our forefathers.

 

Well guess get our torches.

 

THANK YOU. Finally someone said the obvious. I hear a TON of complaints but very few practical or viable ideas; myself included. Come up with some ideas, consolidate them, come up with a signed petition, forward to your congressman or woman and get the ball rolling in regards to improving the state of our coinage. Bottom line, the fiat currency that exists today will FAIL...just like every fiat currency in human history has and the gold and silver standard will come back and we will start this process all over again. Hopefully when that happens we will get our sheet together. Great points and views by all that expressed their views. It made for very interesting reading. Thank you and enjoy what remains of your day.

MJH

 

The same people who don't have the sense to stop making Pennies at over 2¢ per and Nickels at over 6¢? The same guys that keep voting to create more Native American / Presidential Dollars every year fully knowing that the government is building facilities to have to store them because they don't circulate, all the time completely aware that eliminating the $1 bill would force these coins into commerce and make them circulate?

Forward my petition to those guys??? They're going to get something done for me???

 

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I will give you the proverbial nail in our society ever going cashless.

Drugs and Taxes.

Between those two things, you will NEVER get rid of circulating bills hand to hand.

Drug dealers and drug users cant and dont want to be tracked by swipes. And businesses with cash flow (like coins for example), want some way to be able to use cash without paying taxes on every little dollar.

You also have to understand that our precious, beautiful, benevolent government makes money off of drugs, as well as needs untraceable cash to handle many of their black operations.

Cash is King and cash will always be king, the other thing is that cash doesnt necessarily equate to he who has the largest stack of FRNs.

 

When people stop using pennies and nickels then the govt should stop making them.
We don't need some coin collectors telling us that we can't use them anymore.

 

I completely understand the frustration you have. I feel it too. But someone wise once told me...if you can't fix the problem...then become the PROBLEM FIXER. Run for office or simply vote for people that share the same passion you have for coins and maybe, just maybe CHANGE will occur. Let me pass on some wisdom to you. Do you know the difference between almost and never is? Answer: Absolutely NOTHING. I almost finished college...I almost went outside and played ball with my son, I almost got married, I almost got saved...and finally, I almost GOT UP and did something about the state of our coinage...I hope you are not offended...and you see my point. I include myself in this too. By expressing your opinions here on this post motivates others to think hard about issues that are talked about and that is where it all starts.

 

finding someone else with my passion for coins will be a challenge

 

a nickel is a nickel but is it really. The nickel as we know today is the only coin in circulation that has not changed composition only once briefly during wartime,since its introduction as the buffalo nickel in1938.The same thing happened in 1964 with the change of the silver to clad coinage.The nickel as we know it will change in the next couple of years whether it's eliminated or changed to stainless steel.after reviewing the US Geological Survey I found that there is a severe shortage of nickel. it now costs our government 9.7 cents two mint one nickel.this already says that a nickel is worth more melted then spent.the government could always drop a 0 from the paper dollar and cause recession but it can't take the value out of metals.its projected that after this change in about 8 years the nickel will be worth ten times face value.our president has already enacted to laws saying it is illegal to melt a pre 1982 penny or a 5 cent nickel. the industry has already made a penny sorting machine but it will take a lot of pennies to sort to pay for.the nickel is still in circulation at a $0.05 face value despite its 9.7cent minning costthat is a 4.7 cents profit right now!I'm getting too old to cash in on this.your children will thank you.as the children did of pre 1964 silver hoarders did.heed my advice coin heads this is inevitable. mark my words.old ammo boxes make a great storage system.buy as many roles as you can afford now!don't get caught without.I'll end by saying a nickel is a nickel but is it really?

 

I believe the cost per nickle is nowhere near the 9.7 cents. At one point it was certainly over five cents, but I believe it has come back down.

http://www.coinflation.com/coins/1946-2007-Jefferson-Nickel-Value.html

 

Since it was introduced on the shield nickel in 1866.

In the 2014 Annual Report the Mint says the five cent cost 9.4 cents apiece to produce. The 2015 is not available yet.

No it is a LOSS. The 9.4 cent minting cost includes the cost of materials, plus the cost of manufacturing, plus the cost of shipping and distribution. The actual value of the metal in the coin is about 4 cents. So we lose 5.4 cents on every one we make, and if you were able to melt them down and sell them for the spot price of the metal you would lose over 1 cent for every coin you melt.

The reason they passed the law outlawing the melting was because a couple years before it was passed nickel reached the $15 per pound range (today it is $5.6) and the METAL cost for each coin was in the 12 cent range and with the other costs it was approaching 20 cent apiece to make each nickel. At that time is WAS profitable to melt down nickels and the government was worried that if people started doing so they would have to be replacing all those melted nickels at a huge loss.