February 2021 Numismatic Legislation Review
Welcome to the first legislative report for the 117th Congress.
Every two years, a new Congress opens to an alleged promise of a productive session. But like all political promises, the ideals disappear after the opening gavel.
Aside from the public business that makes the news, the House of Representatives set itself up for a lot of busywork. Through February, members of the House have submitted 1,461 bills to be considered. It is the soonest the House has reached 1,000 bills in the last ten years.
If the House is nicknamed “The Raucus Caucus,” then the Senate is the more deliberative body. That is until they appear in the well of the chamber to wax poetic about some issue only to change their minds when the cameras are on them. But the 100 members of the Senate, with two seat changes in January, proposed 479 bills through February. The pace is a little faster than in previous sessions.
Of the 1,907 bills proposed in either chamber, only three had to do with numismatics. Two of the bills are the typical commemorative proposals and the nonsense proposed by Mike Lee.
If this is representative of what we can expect from the 117th Congress, it will be a boring session for numismatics.
H.R. 1057: To require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint coins in commemoration of the National World War II Memorial in Washington, DC, and for other purposes.
H.R. 905: To require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint coins in commemoration of the health care professionals, first responders, scientists, researchers, all essential workers, and individuals who provided care and services during the coronavirus pandemic.
S. 185: Cancel the Coin Act
POLL: Who do you want to appear on the $10 note?
The current $10 Federal Reserve Note featuring Alexander Hamilton
Not to be outdone, we here at the Coin Collectors Blog want to give our readers more choice. Rather than limit to the choices to a perceived top set of picks, we culled several polls and will ask what our readers think about all of the potential choices. In fact, in addition to the choice to choose someone else, you can even choose to leave the Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, on the $10 note. And to be further inclusive, I am adding an “I do not care” option to the poll.
Before someone asks, I removed Susan B. Anthony as an option because she appeared on the $1 coin. Anthony has already appeared on circulating currency, albeit one that was not well received. We should make the opportunity available for someone else.
Vote note. Tell your friends. If there are at least 50 votes, I will submit the winner to the Treasury as this community’s vote.
Loading ...Redesigned $10 to feature a woman
The current $10 Federal Reserve Note featuring Alexander Hamilton
The new note is scheduled for release in the year 2020, which coincides with the passage of the 19th Amendment that declared:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
According to the Treasury Department, the $10 note was selected to be redesigned to add Advanced Counterfeit Deterrence (ACD) based on their study of counterfeiting activity. This decision was made by the ACD Steering Committee, an inter-agency group that monitors a number of factors that go into the maintenance of U.S. currency. One of the factors includes the ongoing discussion of features that will help increase accessibility for the visually impaired as part of the court mandated Meaningful Access Program. Treasury reports that the new note “will include a tactile feature that increases accessibility for the visually impaired.”
The last time Treasury changed the portrait on U.S. currency was in 1928 when Andrew Jackson replaced Grover Cleveland on the $20 notes. Alexander Hamilton first appeared on the $10 note in 1923 when his portrait replace Andrew Jackson’s. Although the portraits have been redesigned, the same men have appeared on U.S. currency during small-sized note era (since 1928).
Series 1886 $1 Silver Certificate featuring Martha Washington (Fr #217)
Lew is asking the public to provide suggestions as to whom should be the new face on the $10 note. She should be a woman “who was a champion for our inclusive democracy,” according to the Treasury statement. You can submit comments on their new website thenew10.treasury.gov or make your suggestion on social media using the hashtag #TheNew10.
You can also visit the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Fort Worth on June 24 and meeting with United States Treasurer Rosie Rios and Bureau of Engraving and Printing Director Len Olijar to give them your ideas. A similar event will be held at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, D.C. on July 15. You can find more information on the BEP website.
Mockup of the $20 note featuring Harriet Tubman
In fact, Hamilton shared his bed with more than one woman – making him one of the first subjects of a political sex scandal.While his wife, Elizabeth, and kids were staying with relatives, Hamilton began an affair with a young woman named Maria Reynolds in 1791. He was secretary of the Treasury at the time, and Reynolds and her husband started extorting money from Hamilton. Hamilton eventually confessed to the affair in full detail in a pamphlet that also featured letters between him and his mistress.
Interestingly, according to Bloomberg news, “The $10 bill is the third least-circulated among the seven major denominations, accounting for 5.2 percent of 36.4 billion notes in use at the end of last year.” The $100 note is the most circulated of all U.S. currency notes.
Image of the Series 1886 $1 Silver Certificate courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Mockup of Harriet Tubman on the $20 note courtesy of Women on 20s
Interesting reads in the mean time…
When I discussed the American Numismatic Association election, I noted that my posting has been more sporadic because of a business I started. This will continue at least for the next few months.
However, if you are looking for different types of coin news and information, I invite you to follow me on Twitter. You can find me @coinsblog. For those of you not familiar with Twitter, it is a social media site where users post information using 140 characters or less. This makes it difficult to post long diatribes of extensive notes. What it is good for is to post short messages with a link to longer stories.
Those who either follow my Twitter feed on the web, using their favorite app, or the the box on the sidebar of this page will note that I will post links to coin, currency, and bullion-related stories from around the web. These stories are not from the usual set of numismatic-related websites like CoinNews.net, CoinWeek, Coin World, Numismatic News, etc. I figure that many of you would read these sites without my prompting. If you are not reading the articles on those sites, here is my endorsement for all of them. I read them all regularly.
Items I do post are from other news sources from around the web. Most of the articles are from media outlets but there are some financial blogs that make it into the mix.
The stories I post are about coins that have been about issued or planned to be issued coins and currency; news about bullion; some economic news that will affect circulating coins and currency; stories about shows where ever they appear; stories about collectors and collecting; or anything else that catches my eye.
The stories that end up in my Twitter stream are “hand selected.” This means I have a few saved searches and I periodically read through them looking for something interesting. Sometimes there are a lot of stories on one topic, such as the recent stories about France being upset with Belgium for striking a Waterloo commemorative. Other times it could be serious but amusing items like Zimbabwe phasing out its inflation currency at the rate of on U.S. dollar for ever Z$35 Quadrillion (that’s Z$35,000,000,000,000,000 or Z$35 thousand million) of inflation currency.
Similarly, I will post interesting pictures I find onto Pinterest. Pinterest is social media for pictures. Pictures are pinned to Pinterest like a bulletin board. You can follow those who pin on Pinterest (pinners) or their individual pin boards. I keep a few boards on Pinterest that I pin to as I look at the various articles. I try to pin something different than the usual coins. Most comes from the articles I find as I search for news stories.
Unless I find something different, most of the items from the news I post to my “In The News” board. One of my popular boards is “Coin & Currency Art” where I post items made from coins or currency or items made to look like coins and currency (that are not or intended to be counterfeit). If you like looking at interesting items, you might want to join Pinterest and start to follow many of the numismatic-related pinners already on the site.
I will try to finish some posts I started shortly. Until then, stay tuned and watch social media for my take on the on-going news.
Summary of May 2015 coin-related legislation
A great metaphor for the politics of Washington is that June opens with the Belmont Stakes, the third and longest leg of Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing. At a mile-and-a-half it is horse racing’s longest race on one of the oldest tracks in the sport. It is traditionally called “The Test of Champions” because of its length and horses tire after running the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. Since Affirmed won the Triple Crown in 1978, there have been 12 horses to lose the Belmont after winning the the Derby and Preakness.
Like the Belmont, politics is a long race with lead changes and maneuvering through the straights to cross the finish line as a winner. The election of 2016 will be different in that it will probably feature more candidates than the number of horses running in the Belmont.
For watchers of the political maneuvering that is part of the sausage making process, it will be difficult to predict how the race for 2016 will affect what congress does. No doubt, there will be a lot of show horses trying to one-up the others. Since coin-related legislation is not a top priority, it will be interested to see how many coin-related bills are passed the rest of this session. Given congress’s recent dysfunction and the race not even to the first furlong, you may be better off reaching for your antacids than a scorecard!
Only one coin-related bill was introduced in May:
H.R. 2525: Hero Street USA Commemorative Coin Act
Track this bill at https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr2525
It’s election time
By now, American Numismatic Association members should have received their paper ballot or the email saying the electronic ballot is available.
Now is the time for all good members to vote for the sake of the association.
Thankfully, the state of the ANA is calmer than in the past. Finances are stable, lawsuits have been settled, upheaval in Colorado Springs has settled, and the ANA has a technology platform it could be proud of. I happy to have been a part of the technology upgrade process that made a liar out of a current member of the Board of Governors.
Both Tom Hallenbeck and Walt Ostromecki have done well as the last two presidents leading the ANA out of its problems. What I know about Jeff Garrett, the ANA should be in good hands. But that does not mean the rest of the Board of Governors can be ignored. As we have seen, there are good reasons to choose wisely.
Endorsements
Jeff Garrett is running unopposed for president and Gary Adkins is unopposed for vice president. Both are good people and will provide great leadership for the ANA. While I have no objections to either holding these respective offices, I wish they did have some competition. It has been a while since there have been choices for these offices.
Since the ANA Board of Governors includes the two executive offices and seven governors, it is my preference to see a turnover where new people have a significant presence over members who are being re-elected or have been governors in the past. New people come with new ideas. Keeping the ideas fresh with a tie to the past is the best way to go.
With Garrett and Adkins running unopposed from the current board, I will only endorse one member of the current board for re-election. To continue with the current leadership, I am endorsing Tom Mulvaney to return as Governors.
There are a lot of reasons to endorse every member who is not a governor for the four other positions. Each has their strengths, weaknesses, positives, and negatives. But when looking at the list of candidates, three jump out at me with different backgrounds who I think would be good to have as a member of the Board of Governors. These people are (in alphabetical order): Steve D’Ippolito, Richard Jozefiak, and Oded Paz. I have either met all three or met people who have wonderful things to say about them. All are worthy of an endorsement.
Christopher Marchase will be my last endorsement. I have not met Mr. Marchase and all I know of him comes from his online statement. But his online statement begins, “I believe the future of the ANA is the millennials and the young numismatists…” then talks about expanding the ANA online presence and expanding its technology. As a member of the Technology Committee, I am in violent agreement with everything he said in his first paragraph. How I could not endorse someone like this!
As you noticed, I did not endorse seven Board of Governor candidates. Although I filled out a complete ballot, I do not feel strongly in favor or against the other candidates.
Why I did not run again
Over the last three years working with the Technical Committee, I have learned a lot about how the ANA works and think I could make a difference. But as my regular readers have noticed, the amount of writing has declined. This is because I started a new business, Having-Fun Collectibles. Having-Fun is all about having fun collecting. We deal in collectibles of all types—all the fun items that remind you of yesterday. Having-Fun is on eBay and The Antique Center in Historic Savage Mill (Savage, Maryland). Starting a business takes a lot of effort and requires my personal attention that prevents me from committing the time necessary to be an effective Governor.
I am also proud of the work that the ANA Technical Committee has done in moving the ANA forward with using technology to create more outreach opportunities. The upgrade and moving forward of technology in support of the ANA’s mission was my primary platform. Now that the platform is there, the priority should change to expanding programs using the technology to create outreach to younger collectors.
The ANA continues to have issues that have yet to be addressed including personnel matters, highlighted by the transition of five executive directors in 15 years, and two lawsuits with the second recently settled. The next board must address these issues and ensure a level of management that may still be lacking.
I will continue to write about my numismatic experiences here and hope to return as an active member as soon as business allows.
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Total Voters: 17
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