What happened to the $1 direct shipping at the mint web-site? I know they are phasing out the presidental circulating dollar coins but are they phasing out the Native American Dollar coins too. Well here is what I think: backward thinking they are. Like Michele Orzano wrote about in Coin World's Jan 2012 issue the dollar coin is far more durable than paper currency. But no the mint doesn't only want to stop the minting of these coins they also want to make to make it harder to facilitate the circulation of the $1 coins by charging a $12.50 charge as well. Come on U.S. Mint get a clue and turn the page $1 coins are far better and a $2 dollar coin would make it easier for people to us coins in daily transactions like the Canadians. Not to mention the Mint can sell another collection of new coins to the collector community.
People were buying them using credit cards (to get reward points), and then turning them in at banks without spending them. The banks then sent them back to the Fed. Apparently they decided to add a surcharge instead of requiring other forms of payment.
What happened? The direct ship program was started in order to get the one dollar coins in common usage in commerce. Some sharpies figured out to order them using a credit card, get cash back etcetera and then turn the coins in directly to the bank. So the mint stopped the use of credit cards for those purchases, then the snooze media put out a couple articles about how the gummint is storing hundreds of millions of the dollar coins, there were a couple industry lobby groups involved, one representing the coins and one representing the paper suppliers, before this got down to the representatives or senators actually doing their job and passing a law, the executive branch unilaterally made the decision to suspend the program, no matter what the law says or said. Perhaps I missed the legislation that the treasury secretary was directed to stop the lawful coining of the dollar coins. It would not surprise me if I did miss it, since I have family and work that takes more time so I cannot keep an eye on the donks and pachyderms.
It wasn't the mint that made the decision to stop minting the pres dollars, it was our present occupant of the White House, who in his infinite wisdom, decided to "save money' by discontinuing them. Meanwhile the government is still spending money to pay for storing the unused ones already minted and still continuing to print and waste money on paper dollars. As far as the direct ship program I suspect that it was the victim of directives from above also. The mint lost money on this program because they covered the cost of shipping them. This affects the bottom line of making a profit.
This confirms it ! I don't follow the goings on at the Mint as I once did. I had no knowledge of the discontinuation of these circulating coins. As much as I hate to agree, it makes good business sense. Businesses and the general public simply don't participate in their circulation.
You can't blame the Mint when nobody wants them. If they want people to use them, the government must get rid of the paper dollar and "encourage" the vending machine industry to reconfigure their coin changers. Without both of these requirements, it will never happen. Chris
They changed the required form of payment and then later added the surcharge. Can you prove that? The order came form the Secretary of the Treasury and I'm not aware of Obama ever saying a single thing about the dollars. More likely it was the bad press over the stockpile and the bills in Congress calling for their elimination rather than the President. The production of the NA dollar is based on the production of the President dollars. You greatly reduce production of the Presidents it greatly reduces the production of the NA dollars as well That's because you didn't miss it, there is no such legislation. The law requires the coins to be struck and they will be struck, but it doesn't say how many have to be struck. So the Sec reduced the production down to just that needed for the mint sets and roll sets sold to collectors. About 3 to 6 million of each from each mint. Better business sense from both a profit standpoint and from a standpoint of reducing the stockpile would have been to eliminate the dollar note instead. The only real effect this decision did was reduce government revenue by $300 million a year.
VEEP Biden was involved. Result of pressure from Crane paper Co. in MA and the 2 Senators from MA. http://dollarcoinalliance.org/ You can take action and get involved to reverse this idiotic decision. H.R. 2977 is in the house and a similar Senate Bill was just introduced (no number yet and not on Thomas yet). See link above and "Get Involved". You can also still get dollar coins from your bank. you simply need to make sure they *gasp* ORDER them. boxes of $1000. They will either be leftover mint wrapped uncirculated or they will be circulated. Plenty of dollar coins are available. I get 2 or 3 boxes a week.
Senate Bill and House Resolution are both online. http://dollarcoinalliance.org/ http://tinyurl.com/7nerv6w http://tinyurl.com/7xzhg7b
