Coin News for February 15, 2010

By Tim Shuck on Monday, February 15, 2010
Filed Under: Coin News Daily

Urbana, IL, Wonders What to do With Canadian Loot
The Chicago Tribune
You try to put a coin into a vending machine or toss a coin into the quarter-ante poker pot. But the machines and the other players at the poker table reject the coins. You put a coin into an Urbana parking meter and don’t get any time on the meter. The probable problem is that it is a foreign coin and, most likely, a Canadian coin. Urbana’s parking meter staff collects the coins and then sells them. They are currently offering Canadian coins with a face value of roughly $800 for sale by auction.
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New Golden Dollar Honors Tribal Lawmakers
The Sacramento Bee
For 2010, the reverse design has changed from the eagle to an image few, if any, will recognize. But this image has more history than our Constitution. The image is purely American Indian, featuring the Hiawatha Belt with five arrows bound together. According to Ed Moy, the U.S. Mint director, “The design honors the Iroquois Confederacy – five tribal Nations joined by a single constitution in the 1400s.” As some historians are aware, the Iroquois Confederacy has not only had influence on Western political thought but also included concepts of equality and democratic self-government – among American Indians on the North American continent hundreds of years before the existence of the United States.
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Royal Canadian Mint Commemorates First Olympic Gold Medal Win
Royal Canadian Mint
The Royal Canadian Mint, proud producer of the Vancouver 2010 athlete medals, is thrilled to celebrate Canada’s first Olympic gold medal on home soil with a medallion and commemorative coin. The first gold medal was won today by Alexandre Bilodeau in Men’s Moguls Freestyle Skiing at Cypress Mountain. ”The Olympic Games movement encourages all athletes to do their absolute best during competition and to view this effort as its own victory,” said Ian E. Bennett, President and CEO of the Royal Canadian Mint. “The Mint congratulates Alexandre Bilodeau for his unprecedented victory and all members of the Canadian Olympic Team for their lifelong dedication to sport and for bringing the country together to watch each thrilling moment of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games.”
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Australian Dollar Minted on Venezuelan Coin
Australian Threepence Dot Com
This 2009 mob of roos one dollar coin has spectacular eye appeal, it looks to have been struck on a foreign bi-metal planchet! Now the chances of a foreign blank of distinguishable difference getting into the drum of blanks, being struck -being the right size to be struck, passing the mint’s strict quality controls, passing through Armaguard’s hands, gone unnoticed by the checkout chick and into the hands of it’s lucky new owner, are pretty slim. This dollar has a stainless steel inner core and a aluminium bronze outer ring not seen on any other Australian coins that I know of. There have been releases here of bi-metal coins with an aluminium-bronze core and a stainless outer ring but not vice versa.
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The Perennial Shortage of Coins in the Philippines
Manilla Bulletin Publishing
Instead of using coins to purchase goods (and in effect circulating them in the market where they rightfully belong), many Filipinos consider them as “excess baggage” and leave them at home. The practice of keeping coins in piggy banks for a long time also leads to this artificial, but persistent, shortage of coins. The BSP sees another reason behind this problem: Coin smuggling.
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Collection of Coins from Bar-Kokhba Revolt Found in Judean Hills
Spero News
The largest cache of rare coins ever found in a scientific excavation from the period of the Bar-Kokhba revolt of the Jews against the Romans has been discovered in a cave by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Bar-Ilan University. The coins were discovered in three batches in a deep cavern located in a nature reserve in the Judean hills. The treasure includes gold, silver and bronze coins, as well as some pottery and weapons.
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About the Author

Tim Shuck is a life-long Midwestern resident, and started collecting coins after finding an Indian Head cent on the ground at his childhood farm home. Additional encouragement came from looking through a collection of well-worn late 19th and early 20th century coins kept by his grandfather in an old leather coin purse. Current collecting interests include U.S. types from the Civil War era through the early 1930's, and Colonial and Early American coins.