The E-Sylum:  Volume 8, Number 52, December 11, 2005, Article 14

PAT MACAULEY'S TWO CENTS ON THE "PENNY"

Pat MacAuley writes: "I agree with Dick Johnson that the
penny will steadily disappear from daily use as inflation
and technology make it obsolete.  But the more serious
issue for numismatics is that ALL COINAGE is threatened
with extinction in daily commerce.  In my lifetime the
half dollar has disappeared from circulation. And the
dollar coin in its Eisenhower, Anthony, and Sacajawea
forms is so scarce that most people can go years without
seeing a dollar coin. Nowadays vending machines can take
paper bills just as easily as coins.

Ironically, the dollar coin is a potential winner because
it could save the U.S. government hundreds of millions of
dollars.  (Coins last much longer than bills, yet don't
cost much more to produce.) Unfortunately, the government
does very little to encourage the use of the dollar coin.
Here in Washington, D.C. the subway system does not accept
dollar coins because it would cost $40,000 to convert its
600 machines to accept them.  If the U.S. Treasury paid
the subway's cost of conversion, it could easily recoup
its investment.

When a reporter explained this problem to the official
in charge of the Sacajawea dollar,  he confidently
predicted that the Treasury could pay these conversion
costs, perhaps by buying advertising on the subways.
How wrong he was -- the thicket of regulations covering
this type of promotion is so dense that he barely dented
it before his term was over.   It would take an Act of
Congress, at a minimum, to make much headway.

If current trends continue, coins will largely disappear
from daily life, and Americans  will be poorer for it.
In my opinion the best way to rescue coinage from these
trends is to make a success of the dollar coin.  If public
transit systems used dollar coins the way Post Office
vending machines do, the visibility of the dollar coin
might reach the tipping point where it might become
widely used.   It would take Congressional action to
enable the Treasury to compensate public transit systems
for their conversion costs (perhaps paid from a trust
fund derived from seignorage profits) but everyone
would benefit.

Are there any coin collectors in Congress?"

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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