From the Sept. 28, 2015, issue of Coin World:
Guest
Commentator Howard M. Berlin totally missed the mark in his recent Guest Commentary [in the Sept. 21 issue
of Coin World] regarding the new proposed $10 Federal Reserve note.
He
implies that the public “might” reject the note the same way the
public “rejected” the recent Anthony and Sacagawea dollar coins. He
even goes so far as to imply that the rejection of the two coins may
have been due to the image of a “woman” on the coins which, by itself,
totally ignores the fact that “Lady” Liberty graced our paper currency
and coinage well into the 20th century. Applying that logic to the new
$10 bill smacks of a misogynistic view toward woman on monetary instruments.
The
reality is that the public never “rejects” money because of who or
what might be depicted on it. Ninety percent of the population doesn’t
even know who the heck is on the coinage in the first place! Ask the
average person on the street who are on the current coins. The public
really only cares if the coins are authentic and spendable and they
rarely look at the coins anyway except to verify that they’ve received
the correct change. This verification is usually done by relative size.
The
rejection of the dollar coins actually comes from merchants and large
commercial retail outlets refusing to order the coins to disburse as
change, simply because it’s cheaper to order and handle paper notes.
To imply that the “public” rejected the Eisenhower, Anthony, and
Sacagawea dollars is simply perpetuating the myth for why these
monetary instruments were not and are not widely used in the marketplace.
The
real “reason” dollar coins have never been used in daily commerce
(this includes Morgan and Peace dollars) is that merchants have
favored the paper bill over the coin.
Furthermore,
the “failure” of these monetary instruments can only be directed at
the U.S. Treasury Department for giving merchants a “choice” between a
heavy coin (as in 1,000 coin bags and not individual pieces) and a
paper note. The merchants will always go for the cheaper and easiest
forms of money.
The
industrialized countries of the world that have successfully adopted
the one and two dollar coins have been successful only because they
eliminated the paper counterparts for those two coins, and until the
U.S. Treasury Department accepts this well known fact, a $1 coin or
even a $2 coin will never be successful and, as such, used on a
regular basis, in the United States of America.
It
is high time that folks understand this instead of perpetuating the
myth that the “public” rejected these coins.
Given
no other alternative, the coins would have been widely used and readily accepted as the $1 and $2 coins are in other countries of the world.
I
fully expect that the new $10 Federal Reserve note will slip quite
comfortably into today’s commercial environment.
Lee C. Lydston has been an avid collector of Eisenhower dollars
since 2002 and has actively collected the Presidential dollars since
their release in 2007. His other interests are in Kennedy half
dollars (all years) along with satisfying old dreams with popular
error/variety coins of the modern coin era.