House Passes New $1 Coin Bill

[jeffrey]

Despite the past history of people not using a dollar coin, Congress is looking to make another one. The House of Representatives passed a bill this week to create a new $1 coin by a vote of 422 to 6. If the Senate also passes the bill, the nation will have a new dollar coin.

While past $1 coins were introduced in an attempt to replace the dollar bill, the impetus for the new dollar coin is more financial than providing something that might be useful. For many in congress, the biggest selling point was that people may hoard and never use them.




The idea comes from the 50 State Quarters series. After the 50 State series launched, the government discovered that large numbers of people were collecting the quarters and not using them. Since it only costs the treasury about 5 cents to make a quarter, every time a quarter is collected and not put back into circulation, it makes a profit of 20 cents. This process is called seignorage and has netted the government $5 billion from the quarter series.

The new $1 coins would also be produced in a series featuring the U.S. presidents. The current bill would have four new $1 coins produced each year beginning in 2007 honoring each US president in the order they became president.

[eddiehcruz]

i think that having the presiodents on conage would be a bad idea b/c of the polarization that our country is going through, espec when you get to the more modern presidents. richard nixon (a crook and liar). andrew jackson was an indian killer, woodrow wilson a racist, etc. why not instead bring back "lady liberty"?

[tgavin71]

We have had $1 coins in Australia since the 80s. In the 1990s $2 coins were introduced. They are both gold and difference sizes.There was a bit of hoo haa about how the size of the coins may make it hard to distinguish between them and lower denominations but I am yet to hear of any cases myself. From media reports it was mainly disability support groups who made the most fuss.
As for people hoarding it was the $1 and $2 notes (we call them notes in Australia not bills) that were going out of circulation that were kept by most people. After all this time guess what the value of these notes are...go one take a stab in the dark...yep thats right $1 and $2. Of course those uncirculated ones would be worth more and maybe those in mint condition.
I personally save all my silver coins 5c,10c,20c and 50c and hand over all the $1 and $2 coins, $5,$10,$20,$50 and very very rarely $100 notes.