*sigh* - deciding what's more important...

[acroyear]

The religious right are going ape-shit over the fact that in the new $1 coin designs, "In God We Trust" has been moved from being on the face of the coin to being on the edge, along with the year.  They are, of course, complaining about the fact that "God" is now not important enough to be on the face of the coins.

The Mint is saying they did that to give more space to the presidential portraits.

And only Ed Brayton is complaining that nobody else is complaining that the word "Liberty", featured on every coin ever issued by the Mint since the 1800s, has been completely removed from the coin, along with E Pluribus Unum.  (It has been noted that the back of the coin is the Statue of Liberty, but that's not quite the same thing.)

Well, I'm complaining as well.  Why should the one thing ALL Americans agree on NOT be on the coin while the one thing that at least 15% of Americans are willing to disagree on be allowed?

Comments

[faerydusted1.livejournal.com]

It looks like the mint is including E Plurbis Unum on the edge of the coin as well.

But yes, it looks like the designers have decided to substitute the Statue of Liberty as a symbol for Liberty instead of putting the word Liberty itself on the coins. I don't think I like it, either. I like the front of the coins well enough, I suppose. But I don't think dollar coins go over well, in general. They're a pain to manage as currency goes.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

they're not meant to be used. yeah, they SAY they prefer them used, but the reality of the progressive series is that when people collect coins, that's free money to the government. A dollar coin costs about 22 cents in metals and manufacturing, and maybe another nickel in distribution, so that's a net profit of 73 cents for every one that's taken out of circulation by a collector.

if, say, ten percent of the population collects, then that's
30,000,000 (ten percent of our 300 million), times .73 (net profit), times 45 (number of presidents by the time the program ends in 11 years).

that's a net profit of $985,500,000, almost a billion dollars, that the feds get for this. minting free money, literally.

[faerydusted1.livejournal.com]

I'd never thought of that.
Maybe because I don't collect coins. I use 'em. ;P (Always stickin' it to the man!!)

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

Some additional numbers: if they stopped printing paper dollars, they'd save about $500M per year.

According to this USAToday article from 2005, the quarters were collected by about 140,000,000 people, and netted about $5B in revenue. So there is quite a lot of revenue to be had!

Also, for the curious, here's a site showing the washington dollar