By David C. Harper October 28, 2009

The numismatic staff here at Krause Publications produces an e-newsletter on Friday of every week. It includes a question that I pose to recipients. The question is a weekly poll question that also appears in Numismatic News, the sister publication to World Coin News that deals with U.S. coinage.

Naturally, the subject matter of the weekly question is American coinage and related topics. That is the plan and for the most part that is what has happened since we began the e-newsletter.

However, after last month’s World Coin News went to press, the question picked up by the e-newsletter was a world topic. It was the October World Coin News question: “Do you think it was a good idea for the Hungarian Mint to replace the 200-forint note with a coin?”

This subject matter caught the U.S. e-newsletter readership by surprise, or at least some of them.

One asked, “What business is it of ours?”

That was something of a surprise to me because in my experience coin collectors rarely turn down an opportunity to share their opinions with others who show an interest.

It also is a response that seems to be going counter to the spirit of the times, where more and more people seem to inject themselves and their views into more and more areas where they have not ventured before.

This behavior has been made possible by the Internet. Online news stories often ask readers to post their comments about them right then and there.

Other responses to the e-newsletter question followed more traditional lines of thought and reasoning. Those in favor of the substitution of coin for note, which occurred in June in Hungary, cited the cost savings as a good reason to do it. Coins endure in circulation for many years whereas notes wear out in just months.

Some respondents drew parallels to the United States, where public opinion still is adamantly against substituting a coin for the $1 Federal Reserve Note, even though that note has been sliding in purchasing power.

The United States even has five dollar coins a year to choose from – four with past Presidents on them and one with a Native American theme.

This variety of U.S. dollar coins doesn’t seem to entice anybody to change his opinion. The lines of thought were pretty well laid out and then frozen when the Susan B. Anthony dollar was issued in 1979 as a potential note replacement.

In the meantime, other countries have swapped notes for coins on a routine and successful basis over the years. Some of these changes have been ballyhooed in the United States. When the United Kingdom replaced the pound note in the early 1980s it was used as a discussion point to try to move the U.S. discussion toward resolution. It didn’t work. The same was true when Canada replaced the $1 note with the Loonie in the late 1980s.

So when all was said and done, the e-newsletter question responses sent to me covered ground that has been covered and covered again for 30 years.

There is something reassuring about this. The dollar coin discussion began during the last time a down economy prompted forecasts of the U.S. dollar’s imminent demise and spurred gold to record highs. The dollar still exists and Americans still expect it to be paper.