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Biggest US coinage "Flop?"
RogerB
Posts: 8,852 ✭✭✭✭✭
What do you think is the biggest coinage "flop" of the US series? This should be a design, denomination or type that is equivalent to the Ford Edsel or AMC Pacer cars, or maybe "New Coke."
2
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Twenty cent piece. Of course, the modern dollar coins (Ikes, SBAs, etc.) haven't met with great acceptance either.
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
Dollar coins! Gold dollars, Morgan dollars, Trade dollars, Seated dollars, Peace dollars, Ikes, SBAs, Sacs, and Prezzies! Never did have a success worth talking about.
Kind regards,
George
This should take a bit of study... but just reacting with not much thought - the SBA dollar will certainly qualify for consideration.... Cheers, RickO
The $3 is a contender, but the winner(or loser) has to be the double dime.
nah, the SBA $
BHNC #203
I'll go with dollar coins in general, defining the biggest flop as number of coins minted vs. those that actually circulated widely. If one considers aesthetics or lack of good sense in producing the coins, certainly the SBA and 20c, respectively, are "big" flops in that sense.
SBA, hands down.
mbogoman
https://pcgs.com/setregistry/collectors-showcase/classic-issues-colonials-through-1964/zambezi-collection-trade-dollars/7345Asesabi Lutho
Should there be a "100 Worst US Coins" book?
Double dime, trime
For some demented reason, something about that appeals to me.....I'm a buyer.
Finding the Top 5 would be the easy part.....finding 95 more would take some research and work!
Susie B. takes the cake. I've never received one in change for the past 39 years. Of course, I've never received a double dime or a $3 Indian in change either.
I knew it would happen.
All of the modern dollar coins. Very few of them have ever been seen in circulation.
In the 19th century the biggest flops were the Twenty Cent Piece and the Trade Dollar. The double dime caused consumers a lot of agrivation. The Trade Dollar threatened to undermine the financial system, and then restulted in a robbing of some workers of their pay after the coin was demonetized.
The Susan B. Agony Dollar would top my list. I still remember the posters put up in all the local banks in 1979 proclaiming "The Dollar of the Future". Yeah, right.
Member ANA, SPMC, SCNA, FUN, CONECA
SBA, period. The other "odd" denominations mentioned could have had a place in coinage at the time. We can't know unless there were articles written at the time. Well, most of them anyway.
This suffers from the same thing as top movie lists. The most recent get the most mentions because they are more familiar to the participant. Check any recent list of top SciFi movies and you will see movies from the last 15 or so years higher in thee list than classics from the 50's. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Forbidden Planet (1956) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), three of the best ever, are down the list if even making the list. They hold up if watched today. I invite you to watch these with family or friends, especially people under 30, and see if you and they agree.
Sorry for the non-numismatic departure. It's a mild hot button to me.
Uhmmmm....."Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is still paying in Washington DC.
Yep. And I'd pay (well, maybe) for "100 Worst Coin Dealers" and "100 Worst Coin Collectors"
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
American Innovation $1 Coin Act
Continuing the small dollar failure.
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/969340/american-innovation-1-coin-act-h-r-6025-now-hr-770-will-likely-become-law
The Mysterious Egyptian Magic Coin
Coins in Movies
Coins on Television
This is true. For decades "Citizen Kane" was ranked the greatest movie ever, followed by "Casablanca." The young whippersnappers can't watch them because they are in black and white and there are no exploding cars.
all of the modern dollar coins
Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. - Bastiat
1) the susan b anthony's
2) the twenty centers
Based on mintages and use in commerce - Small Dollars
All Dollars after the Peace Dollar! And the spouse coins too!
Her.
Citizen Kane may still hold the top spot. There were many black and white films that were exceptional and I just could not even imagine these in color ... The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity and Sunset Blvd for starters
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
The SBA Dollar was a huge flop.
At least they changed the color for the Sackies and subsequent.
There are six or eight laundromats hereabouts that run a lot of machines on the small dollars and the present quarter dollars, no other coin denominations accepted. Lots of self-checkout kiosks in stores that will accept the small dollars too. I know some people who hoard them as a form of small savings. The golden-colored dollar coins should be differentiated (at least a bit) from the SBAs when discussing what U.S. coins worked and didn't work.
SBA gets my vote...ugly as sin, too similar to the Washington quarter in shape/size, and only produced because of political correctness.
- Jim
Most all the Moderns fit this defination.
Plastic lives.
How many suffragettes does it take to change a lightbulb ?
A: none, they can’t change anything
11.5$ Southern Dollars, The little “Big Easy” set
The dollar coins would be extremely popular if the government stopped issuing the paper dollar.
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
Reminds me of this...............
Metric coins that never were
A: The year they spend more on their library than their coin collection.
A numismatist is judged more on the content of their library than the content of their cabinet.
SBA +25
And reference old movies, and I am over 60, it is too distracting to watch them on 4K 70" TV's, and see the SCREAMING OBVIOUS stage props, wig lines, the rolling images in the back window of cars, the slap of the saddle BEFORE the fist actually hits someone (that was the sound effect back then) and women that, at the first sign of anything evil, swoon.
Not that I am ANY stretch of even a stretch of an expert, but having been in 10+ Hollywood films as the most insignificant extra in the background, it is distracting to see the "limitations" in old films, so much that I have trouble following the plot.
This is also trying to overlook the treatment of less than glowing white people.
I'm really surprised that no one has mentioned the Flying Eagle Cent.
The Mint had trouble with that coin from the get go.
I'm still going to post this........but I think I'm missing the point.
Pete
The only thing I ever benefitted from the Susan B. Anthony dollar was the time I got .78 cents in change and one of the quarters happened to be a SBA dollar, so I made .75 because the clerk didn't know the difference. During the time, early 80's nobody wanted it except the Post Office, who took it in a heart beat.
"Keep your malarkey filter in good operating order" -Walter Breen
SBA was the worst.
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest....Abraham Lincoln
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.....Mark Twain
The other older ones mentioned here actually got used in circulation at the time.
The modern dollar coins never worked because THEY WOULDN'T GET RID OF THE PAPER DOLLAR.
Here's a warning parable for coin collectors...
20c.
I've never had a Pacer (my brother did), but I have owned a AMC Gremlin and a 1959 Edsel Ranger and I collect twenty cent pieces.
Oh crap, I just realized that I am the barometer of fail.
I do like FE's so I'm a little prejudiced, but by no means was the FE a flop. To the contrary. I think it represents the most significant change to a denomination in US History. I believe over 3,000,000 were issued on the first day or so and within a decade old large cents were obsolete.
Much as I try not to hate on the SBA, I think it is the biggest flop issued for circulation. When you compare the government's stated objectives for the coin, and its actual performance in commerce, I don't think there's a bigger gap in the history of our circulating coinage.
Odd denominations in the 19th century were often as much a sop to mining interests, as they were instruments of commerce. The double dime was more of a stop-gap measure to ameliorate the silver mining interests after the "Crime of '73". They eventually got the Bland-Allison Act, and the Morgan dollar, which was certainly more successful, but wouldn't end up being the panacea they were looking for. These coins did more or less what they were intended to, even if that didn't include being a useful circulating denomination.
If I had to pick a less obvious target, I would go with the original standard of the half and large cents from the Mint Act of 1792. The rising price of copper forced Congress to reduce their weights before coinage actually began. The pre-1834 gold coinage was also hobbled by a weight standard that was out of sync with the market.
I would vote for SBAs.
i like the toning ( more the reverse then the obverse but just the same )
SBA yes agree for coinage The Dollar coin failed in circulation and because of the small size was constantly counted as quarter in error.
Best place to buy !
Bronze Associate member
The SBA above actually looks pretty good IMO. The toning even makes SBA herself look "softer".
The 1943 steel cents - got confused with dimes, rusted, and were pulled from circulation.
Pacific Northwest Numismatic Association
I didn't mind getting paid in SBA's over Washingtons when collecting for my paper route.
Was there a "new Coke" style coin roll out in US coin history? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Coke
1883 No Cents nickel.
Maybe the 1652 Massachusetts shilling with an chestnut tree on it? (And...where's the squirrel, too?)
Or the butterfly? Or the frog? Or the kid sitting under the tree? They just weren't with it back then.