Miami Herald: Sacagawea dollar coins are everywhere in Ecuador, preferred over paper money.
Goldbully
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Glad some people see value in the Mint's 'golden dollars.'
Sacagawea dollar coins are everywhere in Ecuador
The coins are preferred over paper money
A man holds a handful of $1 coins in Quito, Ecuador. While the coins are often shunned in the United States, they're prized in Ecuador.
Luzmila Mita holds Sacagawea dollar coins in Quito, Ecuador. Sacagawea, an 18th-century Shoshone tribeswoman, is seen as something of a kindred spirit in Ecuador.
By Jim Wyss / Miami Herald
Published Mar 26, 2017 at 12:10AM
QUITO, Ecuador — Busy selling fruits and vegetables on a recent weekday, Luzmila Mita dug into her apron and pulled out a fistful of coins embossed with the image of a Native American woman with a baby strapped to her back.
“I always thought she was one of us,” said Mita, as she looked at the image of Sacagawea, the 18th-century Shoshone woman who was part of the Lewis and Clark expedition. “It took me a long time to know she was from up there.”
“Up there” is the United States, where the U.S. Mint has been producing Sacagawea dollar coins since 2000. And even as the coins have lost their luster in the United States, they’ve been embraced in Ecuador, where they’re preferred over paper money.
On the streets of this small South American nation, which adopted the dollar in 2000, Sacagawea is ubiquitous — and something of a kindred spirit in a country where many have indigenous roots.
About 4,000 miles to the north, in rural Idaho on a recent Wednesday, Randy’L Teton was thrilled to find out that her face was so prominent in Ecuador.
In 1998, when she was still in college, Teton, a member of the Shoshone tribe, was asked by artist Glenna Goodacre to be the model for the young Sacagawea. (Teton still holds the title as the only living model for U.S. currency.)
When the coin was launched in 2000, she spent a year with the U.S. Mint touring the country trying to drive up interest in the coin and Sacagawea’s rich history. But the currency never took off. Vending machines spat them back; cashiers saw them as a hassle.
“American people prefer the dollar bill that they can fold and put into their pants pocket,” said Teton, 40. “Even my own community never really showed the support for (the coin) that it should have.”
Tom Carroll, the general manager of Coins and Valuables in Hollywood, said the dollar coins are thought of more as collectors’ items and keepsakes than walking-around cash.
“You don’t see the Sacagawea coins very often in circulation because dollar coins in general have never really worked out,” he said. “People just don’t respect them.”
But in Ecuador, it’s George Washington who’s spurned.
“Nobody wants to carry around dollar bills,” said David Maji, a taxi driver in Quito with an ashtray full of Sacagawea coins. “If I ever get a bill, I get rid of it as fast as I can.”
He said there was something about the weight of a coin that simply felt “more valuable.”
Ecuador adopted the U.S. dollar 17 years ago amid an economic meltdown and hyper-devaluation that forced the country then to abandon its beloved Sucre currency.
And while the country does mint some of its own coins, dollars rule the day.
Byron Imbaqo, who works at the Rio Intag cafe in Quito, said he pulls in about $120 a day, but he only gets a paper dollar bill about once a week.
“Nobody wants those things,” he said, “because you think they might be fake.”
One U.S. tourist said he’d never seen the coin until he traveled to Ecuador.
Official figures don’t quite explain the phenomenon. The United States Mint has shipped approximately $149.1 million in dollar coins to Ecuador since 2002 — mostly Sacagawea dollars but also dollar coins from the U.S. presidency series. That means there would be about nine $1 coins per person in the country. By comparison, there are about 6.5 billion dollar coins circulating in the United States, or about 20 per person.
But with so many of the coins in the United States stashed away, hoarded and collected, they’re simply not visible on the street, Carroll said.
Teton has never been to Ecuador, but she said she would love the chance for a Native American from the north to visit Native Americans in the south.
“I would love to share the story of Sacagawea,” she said. “And if you’re telling me that Ecuadoreans are fully utilizing the coin, I’m just so glad someone is using it.”
http://www.bendbulletin.com/lifestyle/5170434-151/sacagawea-dollar-coins-are-everywhere-in-ecuador
Comments
They look better circulated.
Lance.
Several years ago when I was dealing with volumes of dollars coins I would occasionally run into a Sac that must have come from Ecuador since it would be well worn.
Sad when you think about it. Why can't we as a country make the dollar coin work? IMO we should just stop printing dollar bills.
Joseph J. Singleton - First Superintendent of the U.S. Branch Mint in Dahlonega Georgia
Findley Ridge Collection
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From Ecuador
That is an amazing coin. Any chance it is one of the forgeries that are made down there? That is a lot of wear... Nice to have either way.
They are, in fact, so popular in Central and South American countries that in 2002 a counterfeiting operation was discovered in Columbia that had produced between 500,000 and 1 million counterfeit Sacagawea Dollar.
I wonder if the Ecuador press has ever run a story on the Cheerios Dollar. There must be some down there.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Not sure what one would bring in VG........
They are used down the Jersey shore boardwalks as place makers for the wheel games.
Are there many Sac lowball sets in the registry???
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
I don't have access to the pop reports. My lowest grade is an MS-67.
I spent some today.
Dollar coins over bill. Poor strippers in Ecuador....
I have some unopened mint rolls (should check them for the mule) from first year of issue.... but have spent them from other rolls and received them in change (when I lived in WA state). I wish we would go to the dollar coins and stop printing the bills... only reason they continue is political. Cheers, RickO
There are NOT 6.5 billion of these circulating in the US. There might be that many within our borders, but counting the ones Dan Carr spent yesterday, only 412 of them are actually circulating.
Hey, I spent three dollar coins yesterday!
I've heard about this but its nice to get confirmation of how ubiquitous they are down there. Isn't that also where we send all the pre-printed hats and shirts of teams that lost the Superbowl and World Series etc?
It **does **have some appeal in a circulated condition JMO
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The US has made some of the greatest coins in history.
It has been reported before that Sacagawea Dollars do circulate in parts of South America. Just had a church friend come back from a retreat in Ecuador. He confirmed the popularity of the Sacagawea Dollar there was pretty strong.
I install clean water projects in Honduras, as part of a church mission, and the Sac's are active there also.