Would it be feaseable to have circulating silver?

One key question - why WOULD you do this?

 

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Those are some of the ugliest then circulating coins around. They were still in circulation in Mexico City when my dad went there for the Olympics. The cool coins are the 1950s era bronze 50 centavos that are huge and have Cauhtemoc on them.

 

Like this US $10 bimetallic coin?

It's gold and platinum though, so at least in design.... A silver-brass one would need to be worth less in FV, as it'll have to be comparable to the ASE. In which case, it'll be worth $1 FV! But as a collectors issue...

But yeah, I'd hoard these if they were silver and circulated. And so would everyone else.

 

Sure, it's a special case. And the "law of gravity" is a special case of general relativity. But when you need to decide quickly which way that loose boulder is going to move, "things fall down" is a useful shortcut.

 

I was too young to remember, but you're the first person I've ever heard say this.

Most everybody else has said that all change was in short supply for a number of years, with the strong implication that it was because everybody was grabbing the silver and clad production couldn't get ahead of demand. Were people really preferentially keeping the clad stuff, or was it just that they were hanging onto every dime/quarter/half because they were hard to come by?

 

It was new and looked different, and people wanted it, at least for a while. I never experienced a "change shortage". My dad was a photo shop retailer. I was only four then, but I also remember people hoarding Lincoln Memorial cents in 1959.

 

Yup, the reason the Sacagawea and Native American Dollars were such absolute successes. People hoarding them because they are more valuable.

 

You have to have a combination where it would make it Economically against valuation. It would have to be mostly copper, and the middle part would have to be much much smaller. Say $1 worth of Silver & copper combined for a $10 piece, and then billions produced so hoarding them makes no sense, and collecting them makes no sense due to quantity and return of value of separating the metals versus face value of a general circulated coin.

Also, that "$10" coin sells for over $700 dollars due to the PM value.
Now if it was a $5,000 face value coin ... would you be collecting it for the PM value?

This is where you have to throw out your equation of the face value must equal the PM value. You have to break that economic incentive for hoarders and collectors.

 

Once you've done that, what's the point? How is it different from our current situation, where there's (runs off to check Coinflation) $13.37 worth of copper and nickel in $100 worth of dimes, quarters, halves, and Ikes?

I'm not sure whether you actually are arguing for circulating silver coinage. If you are, I can't tell whether you're doing so because you love silver, or because you're really arguing for larger-denomination coins ($10, $100, $5000).

I agree that it's silly to have the same denominations that we had in the 1800s, while the dollar has lost 90-odd percent of its value. But we won't get larger denomination banknotes -- that battle's already lost -- and nobody will admit defeat by discontinuing the cent/nickel/dime.

I just don't see any path to anything other than fully electronic money, and the death of cash.

 

Johnny Cash has been dead for years.

 

It would be cheaper to print a scrap of paper with $5000 printed on it.

 

And no government is willing to do that any more, either. There's clearly no reason to do a large cash transaction unless you're conducting criminal activity, and why would a government facilitate that?

 

Yup, and there's another reasons for not doing it ... cheaper for the gov't to print paper, and potential criminal activity using it for large transactions.

 

Anyone who believes that should send me a message. I have a gold mine in ChinaI will sell for a barrow load of silver..

 

I believe it, but sakata will never know it; he has me on ignore. Shhhh. We can keep this just between us, right?

 

well if it makes you feel any better, I have you on ignore too.

So I can't read your message either. lol

 

Yeah, same with me. The only reason I can tell your posts is an incredible level of clairvoyance.

 

Did you just post I look like Beyonce ?
..
oh wait .. wait ... wait .... now .. no, you thought "clairvoyance"

 

The fact that we are producing billions of 2017 P cents isn't stopping folks from hoarding them.

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."
-George Carlin

 

Gresham missed the whole point. Bellman's Law covers it better. "Ordinary mundane unremarkable money drives out perceived novel or special money."