The E-Sylum:  Volume 10, Number 30, July 29, 2007, Article 13

HOW WERE OBSOLETE-DENOMINATION AMERICAN COINS RETIRED?

Dick Johnson writes: "In a communiqué received last week from
Tim L. Shuck in response to my reply in the previous week's E-Sylum,
he comments on eliminating small denomination coins in America and
asks a question I cannot answer. But I would propose the collective
intelligence of E-Sylum readers would know the correct response.

"Tim writes 'I wouldn't however revalue the 'penny,' but let it
continue to circulate in commerce at face value until gradually
withdrawn as returned to banks or put away by the public (is this
how half, two, and three-cent coins disappeared once the Mint
stopped producing them?)."

"Good question. I don't know the answer. Too often a non-numismatic
public (and news account writers) would respond 'the coins were
recalled.'  Recalling is a serious act ordering the public to turn
in to a proper authority certain coins. This has happened so
infrequently in U.S. history, that I wonder why the term 'recall'
is so widely used. Even the pre-1964 silver coins were not 'recalled.'
Neither were the gold coins in response to president Roosevelt's
order 6260 to close the banks in March 1933 and the April 19, 1933
law to go off the gold standard. The only recall I can think of was
for the 1933 $20 gold piece.

"But you hear unknowing statements from the public like 'Joseph
Stalin's initials are on all the Kennedy half dollars and the
government is going to recall them.'

"Okay, so America's obsolete-denominations coins were not recalled.
But tell us, E-Syluminaries, how did these coins retire?"

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization 
promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor 
at this address: whomren@coinlibrary.com

To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum