Coins are a medium of exchange. They should be relatively standard, universally identifiable units of money. On a deeper level, coins are also representations of the country that issues them. Our currency has become a shifting, unidentifiable mess that tries to recognize everything and ends up symbolizing nothing.
Outstanding article. I thought that 50-state quarter program was dreadful, no more than a salute to the covers of state Board of Tourism brochures. But the nadir has to be that Presidential dollar series. United States currency as Chuck-e-Cheese token. I won’t permit one in my pocket.
Tokens, Chris, in every sense of the word.
Good points. But I will make this observation. At least when you own a coin you own something solid and tangible. When you have lots of colored pieces of paper in your wallet, that’s exactly what you have, colored pieces of paper with numbers written on them that represent nothing, are backed by nothing and can be easily mass produced.
Christ is risen!
John
Observant readers will have no doubt figured out that the emphasis is mine but I forgot to say so.
Ad Orientum, as you no doubt know, circulating coins after 1964 (or, in the case of the U.S. half dollar, after 1969) are also “fiat money.” They contain no value other than the “faith” that we as a people are willing to put in them, as a medium of exchange.
Silver and gold are still buyable, of course, but they command a fairly hefty premium, when you buy them with the ‘fiat’ money.
And – – God help our society if we ever reach a point (as we might) where we lose faith in our currency and the government / economy that backs it. There are photos of Germans in the 1920’s who were burning their paper money for heat; it was more economical to burn the money than to use it to buy coal to burn. Such is often the fate of societies with fiat currencies, or coinage.
Re #5
jkc1945,
[blockquote] God help our society if we ever reach a point (as we might) where we lose faith in our currency and the government / economy that backs it.[/blockquote]
I already have. Most of whats left of my battered IRA is invested in inflation resistant assets.