Rant about American coins

A few folks on this board have learned that I'm fond of coins. Mostly American coins, but I have a few interesting rarities in my collection at home: a Roman coin from the 3rd century CE, a Russian 5-kopek piece from the reign of Catherine the Great, a quarter minted by the US for the Kingdom of Hawaii, and a farthing from King George III, to name a few notables. But by and large, I concentrate on just American coins.

Not the ugly, boring, stupid crap that comes out for general circulation these days. No, I mean the really cool, beautiful, artistic coins of days long gone. What I want to know is WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED??

It seems to me, the downhill slide started in 1909. It was the 100th anniversary of Abe Lincoln's birth, and Congress decided to create a commemorative coin to honor him. They thought long and hard (I guess) and decided to use the penny. I'm not sure why. The first commemorative coin had only been minted less than 20 years earlier, using quarters and half-dollars. Maybe they were populists who wanted to make sure even little kids could get their paws on the coins honoring Lincoln.

So for whatever reason, they took the best small cent pattern to date (the Indian Head -- okay, it was only the second design since shrinking the cent) and put a profile of Lincoln on it. So far as commemorative issues was concerned, this was a decent idea. But they decided that it wouldn't just run for one year, and that's where the problem comes in.

Up to this point in American coinage, no specific person's portrait had been used for regular issue coins. Every coin minted before 1909 had either a depiction of "Liberty" or some emblem like a shield or a star or something. Conceptually, this seems pretty sensible. America is supposed to be a nation based on laws and the Constitution. We value liberty so much, we put the word on an awful lot of our coin patterns. Not all mind you, but an awful lot of them. This placing of a dead president's mug on a coin smacked of a level of personal reverence that was a little disturbing.

Mind you, I'm not the only person to be upset over this. There were a good number of Christians who thought it was tantamount to worshipping Lincoln to put him on the coins. No one paid any attention to those folks, and the coin has been unchanged (more or less) for nearly 100 years. Honestly, I think that's a bit long to honor the birth of any president, I don't care how great he was.

But that's perhaps neither here nor there. My main objection to the current crop of coin designs is that they're downright UGLY. Look at the dime, if you dare. Since 1946, it has had a profile portrait of Roosevelt. I understand it will change this year to Reagan. But in 1945, we had the "Mercury" design. Talk about a cut in quality! In 1932, we lost the Standing Liberty quarter to George Washington. 1938 saw the last secular coin (the Indian Head nickle) replaced with Jefferson. 1948 saw the introduction of the Franklin half dollar... which was preceded by the Walking Liberty. This was such a beautiful design, that the bullion silver coins of today have revived it. Sheesh!

Now, Congress is monkeying with coin designs, and it's nothing short of pathetic to watch it. First, they thought it would be cool to commemorate the momentous events of Thomas Jefferson's administrations, so they put together a set of 4 reverse designs to stick on back of the nickel, one every 6 months. Not happy with that, on the second year of the series, they put a NEW Jefferson portrait. Now, for 2006, they've gone back to the old reverse, and putting on a THIRD Jefferson portrait. Talk about a lack of imagination.

And what about the lowly dollar coin? When I learned that they were going to update it with a portrait of Sacagawea, I thought back to the old Indian Head nickels. "They're finally going to get it right," I thought. Well, only sort of. The design was wonderful. The coin's finish dulled into an ugly tan. Oh well... But what's the latest horror to come out of Washington for the venerable dollar coin? Why, we are going to have dead presidents on them now -- ALL OF THEM! From Washington all the way to Reagan.

Here's my advice to Washington. Take off the old, ugly designs; go back to the depictions of Liberty. That's what this country ought to be about. While you're at it, get rid of that stupid "In GAWD! we trust" horse droppings. It's a lie. And the older motto was far better for our nation: From many, ONE. Or, considering the way capitalism has gone hog wild over the last few decades, we could go even further back in American coin lore, and revive the motto from the Fugio Cent: "Mind your business." In any case, I believe that virtually any change in coin patterns at this point would be a vast improvement. I HOPE...
_________________
Agitators are a set of interfering, meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of the commuinity and sow the seeds of discontent among them. That is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary. - Oscar Wilde

Aren't they saying that it costs more than $.01 to make a penny now?

Maybe they should reduce material and punch a hole in the middle of it. I think there's a foreign coin like that.
_________________
Procrastinate now, don't wait until later.

it actually would be tough.

To be fair, you'd have to round the totals.

We have things at my day job where we buy them in the thousands and they cost $.02. If you round, the cost of that purchase order just doubled.

Then there's other companies that buy things like that in the millions. So the problem gets worse.