Should the US Mint make Goloid coins?
HalfDime
Posts: 226 ✭✭✭
There are no official US electrum coins in circulation. However, in the late 19th century, there was a proposal for a type of coin called "goloid" that could be considered America's attempt at an electrum-like coinage.
In 1879, Congressman William A. Wallace introduced a bill to Congress proposing the creation of goloid dollars, half dollars, and quarter dollars as legal tender. Goloid was a manufactured alloy combining gold and silver, similar to electrum used in ancient coinage.
The proposal for goloid coinage was controversial and faced opposition. It was debated in Congress, discussed in the press, and caused frustration at the US Mint. Ultimately, goloid coins were never adopted for circulation in the United States.
While not exactly the same as ancient electrum, goloid represented an American experiment with a gold-silver alloy for coinage. Today, there are no electrum or goloid coins in official US currency.
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My guess is these would sell with collectors today, possibly in the same amounts as Peace and Morgan dollars.
Comments
Goloid was quite different from natural ancient electrum; electrum is mostly gold, with a bit of silver, usually around the 80:20 ratio. Electrum coins are typically around a 50:50 mixture; numismatists generally classify any alloy with silver and gold as the primary components as "electrum", even if the people making the coin didn't call it that.
The problem with US-patented goloid is that it has such a low gold content (the original patent says 3.6%) that for all practical purposes, it might as well not even be there, in terms of the physical properties of the metal. Goloid looks like silver, feels like silver, and the only way someone in the 19th century could have told goloid apart from silver was by destructive analysis.
Would they sell? To numismatists, maybe, but I really think a commemoration of the goloid experiment would have been a more suitable timeframe, rather than just issuing goloid coins just for funsies. They missed the boat with the centenary in 1978, and now will have to wait until 2078 for a meaningful commemoration.
Regular collectors, investors, and PM hoarders won't want it, for much the same reason as goloid was originally rejected: goloid just doesn't look as pretty as gold.
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
Apparently I have been awarded one DPOTD.
Waste of gold.
Can't even imagine a market for this product.
Waste of silver,,,,,
Sure would like to collect the original goloid patterns from the1870s
I wouldn't mind owning a couple Stellas.
Throw a coin enough times, and suppose one day it lands on its edge.
Waste of everything...........
"When they can't find anything wrong with you, they create it!"
@Cranium_Basher73 I would like those as well. For me those early goloid patterns are affordable for my budget.
If the mint produced it, it would just be another gimmick in a long line of gimmicks produced by the mint. Hard pass.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Would there be a privy mark??