Thread: A penny saved is a penny earned

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

How does that explain why the dollar coins aren't popular? The current dollar coins still have a lot more intrinsic value (which is less than a dollar, there is no requirement that they must be at least worth the metal in them) than paper bills do

I guess that I should've been more clear. To make a coin requires using a material that is worth something, unless they start using wood! Our government can spend less in the long run making paper money, so, my suspicion is that the government not only doesn't want it to catch on, they also do their utmost to not let it catch on!

Originally Posted by JMS

Thats because they are required to be at least worth the metal in them, where as our monopoly money no longer requires the backing of real worth like, for instance, gold!

In that case it would be impossible to maintain dollar coins.

If the metal price rises, you'd have people melting them down and selling the material
It the metal price drops (significantly), the US government would need to make larger dollars

Originally Posted by Bruno

In that case it would be impossible to maintain dollar coins.

If the metal price rises, you'd have people melting them down and selling the material
It the metal price drops (significantly), the US government would need to make larger dollars

Yeah, I don't know where he heard that idea... it would be devestatingly expensive to produce currency if that were the case. A lot of gold and silver coins are struck with face values that are tiny fractions of the value of the metal in the coins. Because they're not in general circulation, though, there's no worry people are going to melt them down. They have numbered, limited releases and if you own those kinds of coins, you didn't find them in your change - you probably got them from the Home Shopping Network. Heh.

As for this talk about the dollar coin, Canada has had them for a very long time. There have been genuine gold dollars, silver dollars - this was back when that actually meant they were made of silver and gold, too. For years "silver dollars" were silver coloured, but mainly nickel, along with other metals. In 1987, Canada had been using the dollar bill for many decades. We liked the idea of dollar coins, but the "silver" ones were too big and people weren't really using them too much. (I used to get one every Christmas from an uncle of mine when I was a little kid. I still have them all.) So the goal was to put out a smaller dollar coin so we didn't have to deal with paper bills that decomposed in your wallet in no time, and on top of that, make it eye-appealing --- so they made it golden in colour. Because of the loon on the "tails" side, it was dubbed the "Loonie" when it was put into circulation in 1987.

I remember being at Chucky Cheese as a little kid that year and running around to all the little games and gopher bashing things they had there with my Dad in tow to feed the machines money for me. I saw him dropping in these bright, shiny coins, which were brand new. I had never seen them before. "Wow! These games take gold coins?!" I asked, genuinely naive as a five year old. I think my Dad muttered something like, "Hmmph - they might as well take gold coins" or something to that effect, scoffing at the price of all the flashing rides and games.

The Loonie is made up of 91.5% nickel and 8.5% bronze. The bronze is about 88% copper and 12% tin.

So I don't think it'll ever be worth it for people to melt down this bastard metal for profit.