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Mike M. Ahlers
November 30, 2013
Washington D.C. — To all the great mysteries of life, add this: Why is the lowly, tarnished penny so revered, and the shiny $1 coin so reviled?
Pennies proliferate. They fill our pockets. Our jars runneth over.
When we drop a penny, we conduct the ultimate cost-benefit analysis: Should I pick it up?
Consequently, pennies are everywhere.
But where are your Sacagaweas? And where are all those John Quincy Adams presidential coins?
The answer: in the inventory of the nation’s Federal Reserve Banks.
The Federal Reserve Banks hold about $1.4 billion in $1 coins — enough to meet the demand for the next 40 years.
In fact, far more than half of all $1 coins ever minted are in government vaults.
Last year, more $1 coins were returned to the Federal Reserve than were paid out. More business returned the unpopular coin than asked for them. So the government’s stockpile actually grew.
All of this information is gleaned from a Government Accountability Office report this week with the evocative title: “U.S. Currency: Coin Inventory Management Needs Better Performance Information.”
The report traces the history of the $1 presidential coins from their inception in Congress in 2005, through initial distribution in 2007, through 2011 when the mint stopped making them because of a lack of public appetite to their current ignoble status as the coin that is now costly to store.
The $1 coins have a lot going for them. They are durable and can be used easily in vending machines. They far outlast paper money.
But in the rock-paper-scissors public opinion contest, paper always wins.
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