Time for a Change in our Change

The subject of re-designing United States coinage has been in the news a lot lately – and as most of you already know it is nothing new. There are many who have been clamoring for a re-design of our coins for decades now. On the other hand there are many who could care less if our coins are ever re-designed. But perhaps the best known effort for this cause was put forth about 10 years ago by Diane Wolf, a New York City activist, with major support from hobby organizations, numismatic publishers and individual coin collectors all around the country. Stubborn opposition by then - U.S. Mint Director Donna M. Pope contributed greatly to that defeat. But in the end it was Congress who killed the grassroots movement.

Today however we have some Congressional members who are in favor of a coinage re-design. On Sept. 13,2000 there was symposium held in New York City. http://www.senate.gov/~banking/coin2000/witness.htm The symposium was organized by Senator Phil Gramm to promote a discussion of how US coin designs "may be improved to signify the distinction and greatness of our Republic." I highly recommend reading the prepared remarks to be found at the link above.

In Jan. of 2001, in an outline of the agenda for the Banking Committee of the 107th Congress, Senator Gramm had this to say - "I think there is a growing consensus on our committee that we need to reform American coinage. Senator Sarbanes and I held a roundtable discussion where we had the Smithsonian, we had the numismatic associations, we had various coin designers and artists. And the basic situation we have is that when we started our coinage, it was generally assumed that a coin would change about every 25 years. Our penny design was set in place in 1909.
So we're going to take a long, hard look at coinage. We're going to invest some money in trying to develop new composites and new metallurgy that would allow us to produce coins that look and feel like the great coins in American history did."

What’s more, the current Director of the Mint, Henrietta Fore is in favor of re-design as well and has forwarded her request for these new designs to the Secretary of the Treasury for approval. So the process has begun anew.

In an article published in Coin World; http://www.coinworld.com/news/111102/news-1.asp ; Secretary of the Treasury, Paul H. O’Neill says – "In the spirit of how things ought to be done in this country, it's worthwhile to pay attention to people who have a view about these things," "I can't imagine my telling people we're not interested in their opinions. I don't expect to exercise my statutory authority without consulting with the appropriate people." So it seems Mr. O’Neill is willing, in fact wants, to listen to the opinions of the people of this nation. I say we let him.

Furthermore, I think we have an opportunity here. We have an opportunity to not only promote a change in our stagnant coin designs; we have an opportunity to see to it that we do not fall into the same rut of stagnation again. I propose that we ask Congress to amend the current law written over a century ago - The Secretary may change the design or die of a coin only once within 25 years of the first adoption of the design, model, hub, or die for that coin. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/31/5112.html ; I propose to make it mandatory that our coin designs are changed every 25 years.

Now in order to have any hope of bringing about a change in the US coinage designs it is necessary for our elected officials to be aware of what the public wants. You are after all are the ones who put them in office and they will listen to you as long as you make your voices heard - and in order to do that I have even made it easy for you. But it will require some effort on your part.

Below you will find links that will allow you to directly contact the President & Vice President; any or all of the members of Congress; the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs; the House Committee on Financial Services; any or all of the above’s sub-committees; and all of the individual members of these committees & sub-committees, and the Director of the Mint, Henrietta Fore.

I urge everyone who is interested in seeing a change in our coin designs to write not only to your state’s representatives, but especially to the President & Vice President and all of the representatives of the above committees. And if you are in favor of amending the law regarding coin re-design, write to them about that as well.

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/issues/alert/?alertid=878001&content_dir=ua_congressorg

http://capwiz.com/congressorg/issue...;content_dir=ua_congressorg&mailid=custom

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/bio/?id=20004&lvl=F

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/officials/directory/directory.dbq?command=congdir

http://www.congress.org/

http://www.congress.org/congressorg...nd=depresult2&submit.x=13&submit.y=12

You can also directly contact the Secretary of the Treasury, Paul O’Neill, and Rasario Marin, the Treasurer of the United States at the following link. It is important to contact them for once the SecTreas makes his decision – by statute even the Supreme Court cannot overrule him.

http://www.congress.org/congressorg...and=depresult&submit.x=18&submit.y=16

If you are serious about your desires as I am, I also suggest you write Letters to the Editor of your local paper. Contact prominent members in the numismatic community. Contact the ANA, the PNG, the ANS, write to your favorite coin magazine, your local coin clubs, your friends and relatives and practically anybody else you can think of. Ask them to write as well. It will require no small effort on our part to make these changes happen. It has been tried before without success. But it can and will happen if you try hard enough. If you make your voices heard – they will listen.

carol@bowersandmerena.com - Q. David Bowers

cweditor@coinworld.com - William Gibbs, editor of Coin World

http://www.money.org/anaofficers.html - ANA Board of Governors

info@amnumsoc.org - American Numismatic Society

DavidLGanz@aol.com - David L. Ganz

http://pngdealers.com/public/directors.cfm - PNG Board of Directors

These are but a few of the individuals & organizations that you can contact. There are many, many more. If you are aware of an individual that should be contacted – by all means please provide an e-mail address for the rest of us by posting it to the thread.

 

New US coin designs

There is now a web page for this subject - please share it with everyone you know.

http://www.jdsworld.net/change/coinage_change.html


There are also two petitions available on-line so that individuals can voice their support.

http://www.petitiononline.com/1890law/petition.html

http://www.petitiononline.com/redesign/petition.html

 

Great post. You can add me to the list of people who'd like to see new designs. Not that I don't like the current designs, just would be nice to have something different. I also should mention that I like almost all of the older designs better than I like our current designs.

 

I saw read the article on your site Stujoe - was a job well done.

Don't suppose you'd consider adding a link to this on your site would ya ?

 

Thanks Stujoe - your help is much appreciated :wink:

 

No - this is explained on the web page. What the law states is that a coins design cannot be changed until it is 25 years old without an Act of Congress. But you are correct - no one has taken the intiative to change our designs even though they could have. That is the reason for this campaign.

The web page also contains a provission and a petition to amend this law - which was written in 1890 by the way - to make it mandatory for a coin's design to be changed every 25 years so that we don't once again fall into the rut with our coin designs that we are in now.

 

If you examine the site - it gives you the option of being in favor of redesigning the coinage without changing the law. Or you can be in favor of both. That decision is up to you.

I knew from the beginning that not everyone would want to see the law changed - so I built in the ability for visitors to make their own choice.

 

The Secretary of the Treasury has full statutory authority to change any coin design that is more than 25 years old. However - no SecTres in recent history has ever done this without first consulting Congress & the President. It seems they are afraid of stepping on too many political toes.

Sec. Paul O'Neil stated before his resignation, "I can't imagine my telling people we're not interested in their opinions. I don't expect to exercise my statutory authority without consulting with the appropriate people."

"They tell me I can change all the currency as well with my own discretion," O'Neill says, "but I think I am not inclined to take such actions without careful consultation with the Congress. The Congress has an important role to play, I think, in making the decisions of this kind that so many people care about. I can't imagine that we would make a unilateral decision without consultation."

"In the same sense, while the secretary of the Treasury under the law has certain authorities, I can't imagine making a unilateral decision without talking to the president and getting his views on it as well."

Now since O'Neil is no longer in office it is possible that this may not happen. But it is highly unlikely that a new SecTres would take such a step - changing the coin designs - without first doing exactly what O'Neil intended to do.

For that reason it is important the people of this nation make their opinions known to all who may play a part in this which includes the Congress, the President, the new Sec. Tres., the Director of the Mint and so on. After all - they ALL work for us. And they will listen to what the people want as long as the people express their opinions.

Again - examine the web page more carefully. It is designed to allow visitors to directly contact ALL interested parties and provides contact information in order to do this. These parties include The President & Vice President, any or all of the members of Congress; the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs; the House Committee on Financial Services; any or all of the above's sub-committees; and all of the individual members of these committees and sub-committees, and the Director of the Mint, Henrietta Fore.

 

Yes Bill - I have put a lot of thought - and a huge amount of time into this. I have tried to present information - ALL the information that I have been able to find on the subject.

Why ? - for the betterment of the coin collecting community as a whole. I receive nothing for doing this - nor do I want anything for it. All of my work is strictly voluntary.

I have personally written letters to each and every contact that is listed on the site. I have also written letters to the presidents or officers of every single coin club throughout the nation that is listed in the ANA directory. And I am working on those clubs that are not listed in the directory. I would also ask that all of you - PLEASE - do the same !!!

This is not something that will just happen on its own. It will take work - and effort. But I have tried to minimize the amount of effort that an individual would need to expend in order for this campaign to be successful. So by all means - please join in.