From: flamer@mithril.intel.com (Jim Trethewey @mithril)
Newsgroups: rec.collecting
Subject: COINS: Redesign chances?
Keywords: coins redesign
Date: 29 Sep 92 18:07:15 GMT
Organization: Development Tools Operation, Intel Corp., Hillsboro  OR

> Do you think US coins will be redesigned soon?

First, there is a law which says that each coin may be redesigned 
at most often something like every 25 years (although Congress has 
in the past passed special acts to get around it in specific cases).

Points to note that I have read in the past:

1. The AVERAGE US citizen doesn't like the coinage to change, or be
   monkeyed with in any way.

2. The AVERAGE US citizen doesn't even look at the designs on the
   obverse and reverse often, if ever.  They distinguish denominations
   entirely by color and size (and when in your pocket, by size and
   feel of the edge: reeded or not).

In one of my books (The World of Coins and Coin Collecting, David
L. Ganz, (c) 1980 Charles Scribner's Sons), it talks about
how the US Mint commissioned a study regarding the possibility of
coinage redesign.

   "The 1-cent piece is the least profitable for the government;
    in 1976, [the Research Triangle Institute,] hired as a
    private consultant to the Treasury Department, calculated
    that the government actually lost money on each 1-cent piece
    it produced, when the costs of copper metal, labor, die
    charges, and storage were included."

The mint changed the composition of the penny from copper to zinc
in 1982, but I bet this was only a small offset to the total cost.
The book also points out that government expense was the reason 
that the 1/2-cent was discontinued in 1857.

   "When [the Institute] recommended that the American cent be 
    eliminated for a similar reason, a controversy arose.  The 
    resolution remains unclear, yet it appears likely that in
    the long run the cent is doomed unless a political solution
    permits the U.S. Mint to produce billions of coins at a 
    loss to the government for each piece manufactured."

Not likely.  I predict that the mint may change the composition
once again, possibly to copper-plated aluminum, and then remove
the coin altogether.  They would probably [re-] introduce the
2-cent piece, until the nickel becomes "sufficiently worthless".

On the other hand, it may take 10 years or more for this to happen.  
Many other countries have had small denomination coins that they did 
not discontinue until its value was between 1/4 and 1/10 what our 
cent is currently worth.

I also think that it is inevitable that the dollar coin will be 
reintroduced, when enough people forget about the SBA.  The SBA 
(Susan B. Anthony) Dollar was disliked by the public because it 
was too easily mistaken for a quarter.  The next attempt will solve 
that problem, but there are design constraints upon the solution.  

Options I would like to see are:
   
   1) An interesting shape (not round).  Multi-sided like the
      Canada Loon Dollar, and some of the Canadian nickels.
      However [according to "Striking Impressions", a history
      of Canadian coinage], multi-sided coins with sharp angles
      prematurely damage the "collar" part of the coin press.
      An even more pleasing appearance which solves this problem
      is a "wavy" edge like seen on the Imperial India 4 Annas, 
      or the Hong Kong 20 Cents or 2 Dollars.  Such a coin would 
      NEVER be mistaken for a quarter, or any other existing US coin.  

   2) An interesting color (not silvery).  Such as the brass or
      brass-nickel mixtures like the Canada Loon Dollar or the
      British Pound.  Even more impressive would be a bi-metal
      design with a brass inner disk and a nickel outer ring, 
      like the Italian 500 Lire or new French 10 Francs.

Here is what the book says about that:

   "The multi-sided coin design was [considered and] discarded
    because it was considered incompatible with automated
    merchandising machinery." (vending machines).

The wavy-edge design might also be subject to machine jams.
But this still leaves the color option open.

I would like to see a return to the long tradition of dollar coins 
with Lady Liberty on the obverse and (by Law of 1873) an American Eagle 
on the reverse.

   "In 1977, Frank Gasparro [past Chief Engraver for the US Mint]
    made a mock-up for the small-size dollar featuring on the obverse 
    an attractive [Lady] Liberty with flowing hair, a liberty pole, 
    and liberty cap -- a throw-back to the nation's earliest coinage.  
    The reverse pictures a soaring eagle [a lot more natural-looking 
    too, not the clutched-arrows in talons junk].  For political 
    reasons, [the N.O.W. faction?] Congress voted to scrap the 
    Liberty design and to substitute a portrait of Susan B. Anthony,
    the 19th Century suffragette, for the mini-dollar.  In 1978, 
    President Carter signed the bill into law."

Maybe Gaparro's design will get another chance?

--Jim Trethewey, $WORK = flamer@mithril.intel.com, $HOME = flamer@alfirin
 5200 NE Elam Young Parkway HF3-73, Hillsboro OR 97124-6497 (503)696-5444
--
--Jim Trethewey, $WORK = flamer@mithril.intel.com, $HOME = flamer@alfirin
 5200 NE Elam Young Parkway HF3-73, Hillsboro OR 97124-6497 (503)696-5444
Newsgroups: rec.collecting