# What's the deal with all the coin commercials? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 21, 2000, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-all-the-coin-commercials/11018 "2000-04-21T21:45:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![asrivkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9d8465/32.png) [@asrivkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asrivkin)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2000, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-all-the-coin-commercials/11018/21 "2000-04-23T13:33:00Z")
Franklin got on the half dollar in 1948. The Liberty half dollar (my choice for best looking U.S. coin) lasted until then. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2000, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-all-the-coin-commercials/11018/22 "2000-04-23T13:45:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Speaking of coin-related commercials, has anyone else seen the ones hawking a big cardboard map with holes cut out for all the state coins? $25! Of course they do include the first five quarters, so technically the price is $23.75. And it comes with a certificate of authenticity. An authentic WHAT?! Piece of cardboard? Or authentic coins, hundreds of millions of which are sitting in cash registers and coat pockets around the nation? I’ve seen those things for $15 at Target and another store. You have to mail in a certificate to get the coins. They actually do look nice on the outside, but the inside (map) is really cheesy. Not worth 15 bucks. * * * “I must leave this planet, if only for an hour.” – Antoine de St. Exupéry Are you a turtle? ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2000, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-all-the-coin-commercials/11018/23 "2000-04-23T14:49:00Z")
Dystopos: The TP question was worded poorly. > [@](#): > > Although many women have appeared in allegorical scenes, only two historical women appear on American currency, Martha Washington’s portrait appears on the 1886 $1 Silver Certificate, and Pocahontas appears in the engraving “Introduction of the Old World to the New World,” which is featured on several pieces of American currency. That quote is from [http://www.frbsf.org/currency/iconography/portraits.html](http://www.frbsf.org/currency/iconography/portraits.html) To say that Pocahontas was the first Native-American woman to be **honored** implies to me she was the main theme. She wasn’t. And saying US currency probably means US Government currency, not a state issue or private issue prior to Federal banknotes in 1861. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2000, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-all-the-coin-commercials/11018/24 "2000-04-23T19:09:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by samclem: > Considering that the Washington quarter has been the same since 1932, _the Lincoln cent since 1909_, the Jefferson nickel since 1938, the Roosevelt dime since 1948, boredom may have set in. > > Maybe it’s the 77 year itch.\*\* Correction, sir! The Lincoln cent as we know it was introduced in 1959. Prior to that the obverse of the Lincoln cent featured two sheaves of wheat encircling the words “ONE CENT” and “The United States of America”. With all the numismatists coming in on this one I’m surprised it wasn’t caught sooner… maybe I just didn’t give us all enough time 🙂 * * * All I wanna do is to thank you, even though I don’t know who you are… ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2000, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-all-the-coin-commercials/11018/25 "2000-04-23T19:17:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by Dystopos: > …caught in Nicholas Biddle’s trap once again. curses! (Oh, and by the way, **dtilque** , ‘scissors’ is spelled with an ‘s,’ even though it’s not pronounced that way.) There’s a Usenet meta-rule about spelling errors creeping into spelling corrections. Consider this an object lesson to all you potential spelling flamers out there. > [@](#): > > I was going to ask about the pronunciation, because I HAVE heard it with a hard ‘g’ as well as more commonly with the soft ‘j’ sound. Too bad she, unlike Moammar El-Gadhafi, never typed up a letter to a second grade class in St. Paul. We can only go by what the primary sources. Even by the standards of the day, both Lewis and Clark’s spelling was, ah, imaginative. They spelled the same words, including Sacagawea’s name, many different ways. But they always used a G, never a J. Another thing (as is mentioned on that page I cited), using a J sound there would change the meaning of her name in Shoshone. Well, I think we’ve hijacked this thread far enough. * * * “Scissors Defeats Rock” – The Onion ---
**Author:** ![Dystopos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e79b87/32.png) [@Dystopos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dystopos)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2000, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-all-the-coin-commercials/11018/26 "2000-04-23T20:34:00Z")
In that case, I find that your most recent post exhibits contradictory premises. In any case, I meant the correction in the goodest of natures (sic) in the same way that a kind stranger will occasionally curtail further embarrassment by pointing out an open zipper. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2000, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-all-the-coin-commercials/11018/27 "2000-04-24T00:55:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by Dystopos: > In that case, I find that your most recent post exhibits contradictory premises. Oops. I should have said that we _mainly_ go by the primary sources. These are supplemented by various lexicons of Hidatsu and Shoshoni. Anyway, if you’re really interested in Sacagawea’s name, read that page that I posted. * * * “Scissors Defeats Rock” – The Onion ---
**Author:** ![paintsvillecom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/22d042/32.png) [@paintsvillecom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paintsvillecom)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2000, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-all-the-coin-commercials/11018/28 "2000-04-24T16:47:00Z")
I don’t know where you’ve been, but these commercials are nothing new. Well, these are, but there have been plenty of coin commercials over the years. I mean, remember the Princess Di commemorative coin? There have been others, but I’ve had three hours of sleep and don’t want to go into the trouble of actual thinking right now. But I do remember plenty of these commercials over the years because I would always regard them with the same sense of amusement I took from the commemorative plate commercials and thinking of all the poor suckers buying them up thinking they could hock them at the flea market for 10 times what they paid. However, there is somewhat noticable increase due to the whole state quarter deal. Someone saw an opportunity to make a bunch of money selling cardboard and was, of course, copied by a thousand more people who want their cut of the action. I mean, I don’t know how many idiots you know personally, but I know quite a few and every one of them is socking away every state quarter they come across. I know what they’re thinking – “Hey, these are different! They’re going to be worth something!” Yeah, in 20 years, they’re going to be worth a quarter. In 50 years, still a quarter. Maybe a hundred years from now they’re going to be worth 27 cents. After all, this is the general freaking currency, ferchrissakes. Personally, I think the whole damn state quarter thing is a scam. The government knows the country’s full of dummies. Hell, they’ve been watering down our educational system for so long that they’ve ensured it. So they release five versions of the quarter each year for 10 years (actually, 10 versions if you count the Philadelphia and Denver mints separately). As they learned from the 1976 bicentennial quarter, folks are going to hoard a whole bunch of these things figuring them to be “worth something” someday. That money is taken out of circulation. Granted, it’s only quarters, but it’s still an increase in the amount of money taken out of circulation voluntarily. Following supply and demand, with fewer quarters being used as currency, the value of money rises because the supply is tightened. Therefore, the dollar rises and we pay off our debts to Japan and Co. that much quicker. Now, having realized that I have wandered far off topic and have begun ranting irrationally, I will wander off mumbling and occasionally scratching the place in my head where the aliens put the chip in… ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2000, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-all-the-coin-commercials/11018/29 "2000-04-25T06:47:00Z")
I believe that the idea of the commemorative quarters was actually the idea of some congressman (name unknown) or possibly someone else who talked him into supporting it. At any rate, he was the one pushing it, not the Treasury Dept. As far as them being valuable, there are a number of minting errors that have been discovered. Notably the rotated die error which you can read about [here](http://www.coinworld.com/statequarters/mistakes/rotated.html). * * * “Scissors Defeats Rock” – The Onion [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-all-the-coin-commercials/11018.md?page=1)