He declined to give specific numbers of coins shipped, for security reasons. Problem is, there isn't much of an upside. So many of the coins are in circulation that they'll never be particularly valuable to collectors, says Derzon. It's true that there can't be 800 million coin collectors. But let's try 275 million, the approximate number of people in the United States as of Friday, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Bad money drives out good.
The new dollar coins cost 12 cents to make, while a dollar bill costs 4 cents, according to government officials. Beyond the 8-cent difference, Policano says, people apparently just like the new coins. Or maybe speculators are keeping them on the theory that they'll go the way of the Susan B. Anthony and eventually become uncommon. The only way to prevent that, he says, is to phase out paper dollars. Arnold, at the U.S. Mint in Washington, agrees that the golden dollars have become a collector's item.