ikaros

Oh, that's really sharp. This is the sort of thing I mean when I say commemoratives should be publicly commemorated, not just on bullion and NCLT issues--wouldn't you love to pull a piece like that out of your pocket? That Liberty and Flag obverse is terrific. That's the sort of design we need on our coins, not dead presidents!

This isn't really an accurate reading of Article I Section 10, inasmuch as the reference is to limitations on the states, not limitations on the federal government, thusly: So it really has nothing to do with Federal policy on coinage and paper money, it's part of the enumeration of powers withheld from the states, and the meaning here is only that states are not allowed either to make their own money, or to redefine money to suit their own purposes. Fiat money -- money not backed one for one by silver and/or gold -- was held constitutional in the late 1800s as being permissible under the Commerce Clause (and whichever side of Constitutional theory you sit on, that's probably the single most mischievous clause in the whole document) and specifically under another notorious mischief-maker, the Necessary and Proper Clause (art. I sec. 8 cl. 18). I won't even get into the debate as to whether or not that was the right decision to make -- I haven't given the matter that much thought, and it's a level of economics that induces a bad case of MEGO in me. I just wanted to clarify what the Constitution actually says and does not say. And it does not explicitly require currency to be backed one-for-one by gold and silver assets.

Oh, I'm not even especially wedded to portraits. And I was just tossing out names more for the sake of the ones that could probably be agreed and have a certain historical regard. And yes, I was stating that completely apart from the decision whether to put FDR on a coin, that the dime specifically was the appropriate one once that decision was taken. As a general rule, yes, I'm not concerned with the needs of the vending machine industry. The task of determining national policy on coinage was not delegated to them, and if we as a nation decide that we want to rework our pocket change from the bottom up, each of the machinery providers will rush to be the first on the market with a unit that accepts the new coinage: whoever gets there first will have an effective monopoly until the other companies catch up. All they need is enough lead time to get there before the money changes over. So I'm also therefore not very interested in their needs with regard to the metal content of our coinage. If we need to alter the content of coins because they cost more to make than their face value, then we alter them as a simple matter of fiscal responsibility. We don't continue to suffer negative seignorage because one industry doesn't want to deal with changes. I'm a little averse to going to polygonal coins only because it spoils the size/value symmetry in my system, but I wouldn't be adamantly opposed to the idea. I think I'd rather see the smallest-value coins be holed, and then you can have plain and reeded edges on the middle- and upper-value coins, and that solves the problem of differentiation by touch. In fact, there are some 19th-century examples of 1c and 5c patterns that involve a central hole, on the US Patterns website. Another possibility design-wise is to designate the $5 (or even each of the largest coins, the 5c, 50c and $5) to have their designs changed annually, celebrating some historical event. I'm a firm believer that commemorative coins should be circulating coins. If it's worth commemorating, then it's worth everyone commemorating it.

Yeah, the Franklin was always one of my favorite designs, and while in the main I think I probably have a more positive view of the Kennedy administration than you do, I agree: the change was made for the wrong reasons. At least putting Roosevelt on the dime made sense in terms of the March of Dimes, which he founded. I don't think there would be any argument from the public to retaining Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln. By the end of this decade, Teddy Roosevelt would become eligible, and I think an appropriate addition -- at least from a numismatic perspective, considering the design renaissance he started. One could make various cases for Adams Sr., Jackson, Monroe... and more importantly, there's really reason to limit the choices to presidents, or politicians. Oh, as a side note regarding redesigning our coinage: I don't have any objection to coins with holes as part of their designs. That saves metal, too.

The value of a coin no longer has anything to do with its actual content, so I have no objection to steel, aluminium, what have you. It's not like trying to replace intrinsically valuable silver and gold. I've thought along Steve's lines myself -- completely redesigning our coinage from all directions without giving any regard to the wishes of the coin-op interests. I'd like to see 1c, 2c, 5c all of copper-washed steel or some other very low base-metal value, followed by 10c, 20c and 50c of clad, and $1, $2 and $5 of one of Nordic gold or one of the other gold-toned alloys. The 1c, 10c and $1 are the same size; so are the 2c, 20c and $2 (larger than the 1s) and the 5s are of course larger than the 2s. All are identifiable on sight by size and color, and if the 1-5c pieces are smooth edged, the 10c-50c are reeded, and the $1-$5 have some security edge, they are also identifiable by touch. Only three sizes of blanks are therefore needed, unlike the 6 different sizes in use now. That would, I should think, simplify things for coin-op manufacturers who then only have three sizes to deal with. Steel-cored coins can be separated out magnetically; I would expect that there is a weight differential between clad and Nordic gold coins of the same size, but I don't know if it's enough to be able to sort them mechanically. That's the only sticking point I can think of. Unrelated to that is that I would also like to ban presidential portraits from the coins and return to the traditional symbols of liberty -- or at least prevent presidents from appearing on coins until they have been dead for an entire century. So maybe we could have Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on the 1, 2 and 5c pieces; the White House, Capitol and SCOTUS buildings on the 10c-50c pieces; and the Capped Bust, Seated and St Gaudens Liberties on the $1-$5.

True story, I bought a coffee at a Tim Hortons (in Ohio) with a Sacagawea and a half dollar, and the window help asked me if the Kennedy was a two dollar piece... I was so very tempted to say, "Yes. Yes, it is," in as sincere a voice as I could manage. As it stands, I have a 1994P half in my pocket even as I type.

Gnnn... another imperial piece to get my attention! No fair! Jeez. I think making a 'pence of the Empire' collection is only a matter of time...

Really? I don't think I've paid more than $5-$6 for any of mine -- but they're not slabbed and professionally graded.

Are you going to be including the SMS issues too? Some of my favorites in my set are really well struck SMS nickels, especially when they have that really light cameo, like they're trying their hardest to be proofs even though they aren't.

They're pretty even if I am late to the party. Thanks for the contest and congrats to the winners!

Not for that kind of money, no.

Me either. I wonder if I should be looking for a coin expert specializing in toning, or a metallurgist who happens to be a collector...

Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of the electromotive potential between the pure copper and the cupronickel layers as a toning inhibitor -- just as a theory, I'm no physicist or a metallurgist, but it's the most obvious structural difference between a nickel and clad coinage and the simplest interaction that's a direct result of that difference. I can think of seeing several sets where the nickel was well and truly toned, and the clads were barely, if at all, so I suspect there's something going on.

What's funny about that is that I've got two of the 2011 NPQs from change - Glacier and Olympic, and only now have got my first 2010. Meanwhile, I'm really looking forward to 2013's Ohio NPQ because the Perry monument was visible from my grandparents' place on Lake Erie. It'll be nice to see something I know on a coin.

Well, it only took until 2012, but I finally got a 2010 NPQ -- Yellowstone.

Huh. I thought it was a different composition, mainly because I haven't seen clad coins tone the same way that nickels do, even the ones from the 60s when they were still deeply sculpted. I wonder if that has to do with being a copper sandwich rather than being a solid piece...

Jeffs are a blast to collect. They converted me from my agnosticism on toning. There's no killers (unless you're going for the major known errors or strictly FS), and the glow of a vintage Jeff in MS is unlike any other modern American coin -- well, that's probably not a surprise given that it has a metal content unlike any other. Also, I'm with you on golf.

I think I'm going to jerry-rig a polarizing filter in there, to see if that moderates the glare. I dunno, it's all about the experimentation now.

Pictures! Lenin Centennial ruble, 1970 This is a companion to my 2009 Aerican Empire piece, and my first coin dated 2012. And besides, a Henson quote is all but irresistable. Never posted this earlier -- a wooden nickel from the CONA show last September.

Pictures! They had to come eventually! 1972 nickel 1972D nickel 1973D nickel 1981S Type 1 nickel -- doesn't capture the really remarkable toning. It's an odd olive green, just gorgeous. 1981S Type 2 nickel 2011P nickel 2011D nickel 2011S nickel I really need to spend some time just taking pictures and learning what I'm doing wrong... my photo quality is just too variable.

Yeah, I was really happy to have all my data at hand. It'll make the Ohio show this coming September a real breeze. The only thing it can't do is update data on the fly, since it's just a reader. But I can live with that. It beats my old Palm-based system on a couple counts -- while it loses on updating on the fly, it wins on readability... and on compatibility, as my Palm is so old, Palm's not bothering with writing new drivers for Win7. I think the only update I need to make is to condense all my spreadsheets into one document instead of separate documents as I have them now. It would've been a lot easier to flip pages than it was to change documents. Live and learn!

I recently bought a Nextbook -- real basic ebook reader, not tied to any particular merchant like Amazon or B&N. So I can print out my catalogs from OpenOffice to PDFs and load them directly, and have them on-hand to refer to, while listening to my favorite MP3s in the background! So I sat down and catalogued my Jeffs, then my Brits, then my Poles, then my Russians, and got ready for a raid on my LCS. Just as I'm heading out the door, the reader already stashed in my backpack (gotta love long earphone leads) and the computer already shut down, I spot five coins sitting on a shelf that I forgot to catalog. So I still have to rely on memory. But not for everything anymore. Not much to be had in the foreigns bin, other than a few Soviet-era rubles turning up -- all of them the 1970 Lenin commemorative. At least I was able to pick and choose and get the best available than the only available. I also got a 5 kopek piece... forget what year off the top of my head, I'm posting from a coffee house and don't have them at hand. One new Polish piece, a 10 groszy from the early 1970s. And a couple of Brits - a threepence from the early 1940s, a 1916 penny, and a 1963 shilling (Scottish reverse). It's a blessing and curse that my LCS takes foreigns seriously enough that I can get really good pieces there... and therefor that I can't luck out too much in the foreigns bin. Ah, well. I love the team there; they know their business, and they don't look down on the small-scale collectors like me. Actually, some comments I overheard while there suggest they really like the guys like me who collect for the love of collecting rather than the hope of making a quick buck.

I really need to capture the color on that 81S-T1. I mean, it's *green*, and it's a *pretty* green. I can't recall ever seeing a color quite like it on a coin before (anodized NCLT notwithstanding). As soon as it was in hand, I knew I needed it, especially since there wasn't anything more impressive (I couldn't tell a PF65 from a PF70 anyway). I think it's probably fair to say that I'm no longer agnostic about toning.

I usually do, in my own random way. I needed the 64/64D to go with the proof I'd picked up at the CNS show last September, for one. The 73D had killer eye appeal, so I thought I'd get some more from the early 70s while I was at it. And of course, the 2011PDS all in one fell swoop. But there wasn't an appealing 73 (more accurately, there wasn't *any* 73 in the cabinet) to go with the 73D, so that's waiting until later. BTW, the dealer mentioned that the 2009s are even harder to find than before; they've been offering $4 *apiece* for them, and can't get any. They've had outstanding orders for unc rolls for months that they just can't fill. People aren't breaking up their mint sets to make them available, and there were so doggone few released in the first place... glad I already have 'em! In twenty years time, the 09P&D may well have joined the 39D and 50D as additional keys to the series, though I should be surprised if they get much above $10 each in BU -- the 50D is something like $15 to $25 in unc and only starts to get obscene when those magic letters FS appear (and even then, it's not too horrible -- a 50D graded MS65FS by PCGS went for $44 on Heritage earlier this month), and even the 39D is still under $100 even in MS65 and 66. Still, since most of the rest of the series barely reaches $2-3 in unc, it's still a premium coin, if in a relative way.

Still alive! I made a milestone yesterday: the Jefferson Project is now 25% complete. Not counting errors and going only with major variations like the 1939 T1 and T2 issues and the 1979 and 1981 T1 and T2 proofs, I count (including 2012) 246 individual coins, treating proof and business strikes separately. I currently have 55 coins, almost all chosen individually based on whether or not it made me happy. Pictures to come, of course. I got the 2011PDS (no 2012 available yet), the 1981S T1 and T2, then filled in a few uncs from the 60s and 70s and 61 proof. The 73D is stunning; the 64 and 64D pointed out the problem of finding strongly struck issues from the late 50s and early 60s -- almost all of them had more softness than I really like, but I located a couple I was happy with. The star of all of them is probably the 81S T1, which has got the most unusual olive-green toning going on. I don't know where the color is going, but I like where it is. The set so far seems evenly divided between blast white, and unusual toning. Few of the coins (other than the most recent) are just plain coins. I may end up leaning more towards toned coins. I'm getting more and more interested by the variations in color, and nickels of course tone differently than other issues. The set could end up bifurcating into white and toned sets, but I doubt it will if only because an untoned coin may tone eventually, but a toned coin will never untone.