A new penny, but why?
LA Times - Editorial
In honor of the upcoming bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, the U.S. Mint is giving the 100-year-old Lincoln penny a new look. The front will continue to show his profile, but the Lincoln Memorial on the back will be replaced by images that are intended to evoke different aspects of his life, such as a log cabin and young Abe sitting on a log, reading. This is expected to create a big buzz in the coin-collecting world, but in truth, the only makeover the penny needs is a disappearing act.
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New penny designed partly in Philadelphia
By Peter Mucha - Inquirer
As a teen, Charles Vickers, a sculpture/engraver for the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia, had to split firewood using a wedge and a wood-headed hammer called a maul. So, a few years ago, when the mint assigned him to submit one of four new designs for the penny, an image immediately came to the Jenkintown gentleman’s mind: Lincoln’s reading a book while taking a break from splitting logs with a double-banded maul.
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The Central Bank of Bahrain issues new notes
Bahrain Tribune
The Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB)Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) issued new currency notes and coins worth BD11.9 million, in the run-up to Eid Al Fitr; which have been delivered to commercial banks in the Kingdom. The new notes and coins are being issued to meet the increased demand for new currency.
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Collecting South Carolina Colonial Notes
By William Brandimore, Market Update
South Carolina notes are as varied as those from North Carolina. They feature lots of Latin mottos and my particular favorites carry vignettes of Hercules slaying the Nubian Lion; Prometheus having his liver devoured by a vulture and a figure who may or may not be Atlas, carrying a huge boulder.
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Design Changes in Store for Dollars and Cents
By Maggie Pahl, Market Update
After much attention and debate, the “In God We Trust” motto is making its home on the obverse of Presidential dollars in 2009.
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Half Dimes 70-Percent Off
Coin Collector’s Blog
Representative Frank Lucas, a Republican who represents Oklahoma’s 3rd District and a coin collector, introduced H.R.?6942 “to provide for the return of the half-dime as the new 5-cent circulating coin.” The text of the bill is very simple, it calls for the removal of “Paragraph (5) of section 5112(a) of title 31, United States Code” (31?U.S.C.?§5112(a)) that describes the current nickel as “a 5-cent coin that is 0.835 inch in diameter and weighs 5 grams.” In its place, the bill calls for “a clad half-dime that is based on the size and shape of the half-dime or 5-cent coin produced in the 1870s.”
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Re-engraving a mystery
By Tom DeLorey
The unexplained re-engraving at the Philadelphia Mint of an obverse and reverse pair of 1938 proof Jefferson nickel dies, as previously revealed by Michael Fey in a press release sent to the numismatic press in June of this year, is not unique after all. At least five different 1938 proof nickel obverse dies were enhanced by an engraver who hand carved details directly into working proof dies, and it remains to be seen if ANY 1938 proof nickel dies have the elusive “normal” design.
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