WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.259 So if you took about 1 .4 billion $1 coins, and 00:00:07.259 --> 00:00:09.740 you just laid them out flat edge to edge. That 00:00:09.740 --> 00:00:11.839 is a lot of coins. Right, it would literally 00:00:11.839 --> 00:00:14.119 stretch all the way from Los Angeles to Chicago. 00:00:14.359 --> 00:00:18.019 Yeah, a massive solid highway of metal. And right 00:00:18.019 --> 00:00:21.980 now, that exact highway. is sitting in absolute 00:00:21.980 --> 00:00:25.219 darkness, just locked away in federal reserve 00:00:25.219 --> 00:00:28.079 vaults. Just gathering dust. Exactly. And it's 00:00:28.079 --> 00:00:29.379 sitting there because the United States government 00:00:29.379 --> 00:00:32.500 spent over a billion dollars manufacturing a 00:00:32.500 --> 00:00:34.579 currency that the American public, well, they 00:00:34.579 --> 00:00:36.240 just flat out refused to touch it. They really 00:00:36.240 --> 00:00:38.460 did. So today for this deep dive, we are looking 00:00:38.460 --> 00:00:41.439 at a huge stack of data about this ambitious 00:00:41.439 --> 00:00:44.079 government initiative. It was designed to completely 00:00:44.079 --> 00:00:46.549 change how we spend our money. and it ultimately 00:00:46.549 --> 00:00:50.009 resulted in a literal mountain of unwanted coins. 00:00:50.409 --> 00:00:52.469 So, okay, let's unpack this. I'm ready. Because 00:00:52.469 --> 00:00:54.350 this isn't just some boring story about minting 00:00:54.350 --> 00:00:56.990 money. I mean, it is a fascinating study of behavioral 00:00:56.990 --> 00:00:59.969 economics, political compromises, and honestly, 00:01:00.109 --> 00:01:03.030 some truly bizarre manufacturing errors. It really 00:01:03.030 --> 00:01:06.109 is. And my mental backdrop for this deep dive 00:01:06.109 --> 00:01:09.129 is just a cavernous, overflowing bank vault. 00:01:09.189 --> 00:01:12.189 Right. Scrooge McDuck style. Exactly. Because 00:01:12.189 --> 00:01:15.030 I firmly believe knowledge is most valuable when 00:01:15.030 --> 00:01:18.069 we understand the why behind historical oddities 00:01:18.069 --> 00:01:20.730 like this. Like, how does an advanced economy 00:01:20.730 --> 00:01:23.370 accidentally toward over a billion dollars in 00:01:23.370 --> 00:01:25.609 spare change? It's a great question. And to find 00:01:25.609 --> 00:01:28.870 the answer, the origin story of this whole stockpile 00:01:28.870 --> 00:01:33.030 really takes us back to December 2005. That is 00:01:33.030 --> 00:01:35.750 when Congress passes an act authorizing a brand 00:01:35.750 --> 00:01:39.189 new presidential dollar coin program. OK, so 00:01:39.189 --> 00:01:42.390 2005. Right. But to understand why they did this 00:01:42.390 --> 00:01:45.049 in the first place, we have to look at the Treasury's 00:01:45.049 --> 00:01:47.670 financial playbook at that exact moment. They 00:01:47.670 --> 00:01:49.609 were coming off the heels of the 50 state quarters 00:01:49.609 --> 00:01:51.700 program. Oh, yeah. Everybody remembers those. 00:01:51.739 --> 00:01:53.680 Yeah, and it was an absolute blockbuster for 00:01:53.680 --> 00:01:56.000 them. It was huge. And since you've been following 00:01:56.000 --> 00:01:58.040 these, you know, behavioral economics trends 00:01:58.040 --> 00:02:00.239 for a while, you know, the state quarters program 00:02:00.239 --> 00:02:02.560 wasn't just a fun little collectathon for kids. 00:02:02.599 --> 00:02:05.140 Oh, no, not at all. It was a massive revenue 00:02:05.140 --> 00:02:07.620 generator. The government noticed that millions 00:02:07.620 --> 00:02:09.740 of Americans were pulling these quarters out 00:02:09.740 --> 00:02:12.139 of circulation, just hoarding them in those little 00:02:12.139 --> 00:02:14.400 cardboard map folders of the maps. I have one 00:02:14.400 --> 00:02:17.669 of those same. And because of that. The Treasury 00:02:17.669 --> 00:02:20.669 was raking in just an absurd amount of seniorage. 00:02:21.250 --> 00:02:24.250 Yes. And what's fascinating here is how aggressively 00:02:24.250 --> 00:02:26.810 they tried to scale that economic engine. Right. 00:02:26.990 --> 00:02:29.789 They wanted to go bigger. Exactly. The Treasury 00:02:29.789 --> 00:02:34.150 looked at the $6 .3 billion with a billion dollars 00:02:34.150 --> 00:02:37.030 in seniors they generated between 1999 and 2008 00:02:37.030 --> 00:02:40.020 from those state quarters. $6 .3 billion. Just 00:02:40.020 --> 00:02:42.680 from quarters. Just from quarters. And they essentially 00:02:42.680 --> 00:02:46.460 got greedy. I mean, seniorage is basically the 00:02:46.460 --> 00:02:48.580 profit the government makes from the difference 00:02:48.580 --> 00:02:52.460 between a coin's face value and its actual production 00:02:52.460 --> 00:02:54.439 cost. So if it costs five cents to make a quarter, 00:02:54.460 --> 00:02:57.639 they make 20 cents profit. Precisely. And they 00:02:57.639 --> 00:03:00.000 realized that if the public hoards the coins 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:02.460 instead of spending them, it effectively gives 00:03:02.460 --> 00:03:05.539 the government billions in free capital because 00:03:05.539 --> 00:03:07.780 nobody is cashing them in. Wow. So it's just 00:03:07.780 --> 00:03:10.400 free money for the Treasury. Right. So the logic 00:03:10.400 --> 00:03:12.819 was incredibly straightforward. They thought, 00:03:13.159 --> 00:03:15.939 if we can generate that much profit on a 25 cent 00:03:15.939 --> 00:03:19.479 piece, imagine the senior loop we can create 00:03:19.479 --> 00:03:22.120 with a higher denomination. Oh, of course. Let's 00:03:22.120 --> 00:03:24.840 put the presidents on a one dollar coin and just 00:03:24.840 --> 00:03:27.919 watch the revenue multiply. Which on paper sounds 00:03:27.919 --> 00:03:30.919 like a great idea. And the rollout plan was highly 00:03:30.919 --> 00:03:33.780 structured. I mean, they decided to release four 00:03:33.780 --> 00:03:36.939 presidents a year. in chronological order of 00:03:36.939 --> 00:03:38.879 their terms in office. Starting with Washington. 00:03:39.039 --> 00:03:41.659 Right, Washington first. But they attached this 00:03:41.659 --> 00:03:44.719 specific historical safeguard to the legislation. 00:03:44.780 --> 00:03:48.199 It was called the Dead for Two Years Rule. Yes. 00:03:48.560 --> 00:03:50.939 Basically, a president had to be deceased for 00:03:50.939 --> 00:03:53.639 at least two years prior to the minting date 00:03:53.639 --> 00:03:56.219 to even be eligible to get a coin, which honestly 00:03:56.219 --> 00:03:59.020 is a very standard, very necessary safeguard. 00:03:59.259 --> 00:04:02.199 It's meant to prevent the politicization of living 00:04:02.199 --> 00:04:04.740 figures on active currency. You don't want a 00:04:04.740 --> 00:04:06.439 current president putting their face on money. 00:04:06.780 --> 00:04:09.099 Exactly. You don't want a sitting politician 00:04:09.099 --> 00:04:12.280 using the US Mint as a taxpayer funded campaign 00:04:12.280 --> 00:04:16.500 billboard. But, you know, as we will see, that 00:04:16.500 --> 00:04:19.800 seemingly logical rule created a massive legislative 00:04:19.800 --> 00:04:22.160 headache down the line. Oh, it completely backfired. 00:04:22.899 --> 00:04:24.540 But even before they got to those headaches, 00:04:24.860 --> 00:04:26.620 like before they even minted the first George 00:04:26.620 --> 00:04:30.139 Washington coin, the entire initiative ran into 00:04:30.139 --> 00:04:33.259 a bizarre political roadblock, a very specific 00:04:33.259 --> 00:04:35.759 roadblock. Right. Because at the time, the government 00:04:35.759 --> 00:04:38.339 was already producing the Sacagawe dollar coin 00:04:38.339 --> 00:04:41.699 and. It was struggling, like really struggling. 00:04:41.860 --> 00:04:43.800 Nobody was using it. The public just wasn't interested. 00:04:44.139 --> 00:04:46.120 And the whole point of the new presidential coin 00:04:46.120 --> 00:04:48.779 was to replace the Sacagawea one. But the North 00:04:48.779 --> 00:04:50.920 Dakota congressional delegation stepped in. North 00:04:50.920 --> 00:04:54.220 Dakota. Because they considered Sacagawea a local 00:04:54.220 --> 00:04:57.160 hero and they fiercely protected that coin. So 00:04:57.160 --> 00:04:59.699 they forced a legal mandate stating that the 00:04:59.699 --> 00:05:02.319 Mint had to continue producing the failing Sacagawea 00:05:02.319 --> 00:05:05.060 dollars right alongside the brand new presidential 00:05:05.060 --> 00:05:08.930 ones. The absurdity of that mandate, it really 00:05:08.930 --> 00:05:12.259 cannot be overstated. Makes no sense. None. You 00:05:12.259 --> 00:05:15.319 have Congress legally authorizing a brand new 00:05:15.319 --> 00:05:18.420 currency, specifically because the old one is 00:05:18.420 --> 00:05:22.319 failing, while simultaneously legally mandating 00:05:22.319 --> 00:05:24.800 the continued mass production of the failing 00:05:24.800 --> 00:05:27.899 currency. It's wild. The initial legislation 00:05:27.899 --> 00:05:31.819 literally forced the Mint to produce one Sakagoea 00:05:31.819 --> 00:05:34.939 coin for every three presidential coins, a ratio 00:05:34.939 --> 00:05:37.860 that they later reduced to one in five, but still. 00:05:37.959 --> 00:05:39.680 OK, I mean, think about it like a movie studio. 00:05:39.790 --> 00:05:42.170 Oh, I like this. Right, so a studio has a massive 00:05:42.170 --> 00:05:44.509 flop. but then they try to launch a brand new 00:05:44.509 --> 00:05:46.750 cinematic universe to recover. A fresh start. 00:05:47.170 --> 00:05:49.610 Exactly. Except the studio executives, in this 00:05:49.610 --> 00:05:52.629 case, the North Dakota delegation, they mandate 00:05:52.629 --> 00:05:55.410 that the incredibly unpopular lead actor from 00:05:55.410 --> 00:05:58.790 the flock has to be awkwardly written into every 00:05:58.790 --> 00:06:01.310 third scene of the new franchise. That is exactly 00:06:01.310 --> 00:06:03.449 what it was like. It just bloats the entire production. 00:06:03.649 --> 00:06:05.370 It completely confuses the audience. And the 00:06:05.370 --> 00:06:07.769 Federal Reserve, I mean, they saw this train 00:06:07.769 --> 00:06:10.439 wreck coming from a mile away. They had to. They 00:06:10.439 --> 00:06:12.879 officially warned Congress. They pointed out 00:06:12.879 --> 00:06:15.740 that if the public didn't adopt the new dollar 00:06:15.740 --> 00:06:18.639 coins, forcing the continued production of the 00:06:18.639 --> 00:06:21.220 Sakuei dollars was just going to bleed taxpayer 00:06:21.220 --> 00:06:24.000 money with literally zero economic benefit. Just 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:27.060 burning money. But political leverage won out. 00:06:27.879 --> 00:06:30.420 And the mandate stood. So, okay, the convoluted 00:06:30.420 --> 00:06:32.480 rules are all set. Yeah. And the Mint actually 00:06:32.480 --> 00:06:34.439 has to physically engineer these things now. 00:06:34.879 --> 00:06:37.920 And they purposely matched the electromagnetic 00:06:37.920 --> 00:06:40.839 signature of the new coin to the old Kubernetes 00:06:40.839 --> 00:06:43.759 Susan B. Anthony dollar from the 70s. Which is 00:06:43.759 --> 00:06:46.379 actually incredibly shrewd. Right. Because they 00:06:46.379 --> 00:06:48.620 knew if they forced the private sector to update 00:06:48.620 --> 00:06:51.160 all the coin acceptors in millions of vending 00:06:51.160 --> 00:06:53.120 machines and transit kiosks, it would have been 00:06:53.120 --> 00:06:55.579 a disaster. The rollout would stall out on day 00:06:55.579 --> 00:06:57.579 one. People would be furious. That was the genius 00:06:57.579 --> 00:06:59.399 of the physical composition, though, because 00:06:59.399 --> 00:07:02.339 they used a manganese brass cladding, specifically 00:07:02.339 --> 00:07:07.680 77 % copper, 12 % zinc, 7 % manganese and 4 % 00:07:07.680 --> 00:07:10.800 nickel over a pure copper core. That's a very 00:07:10.800 --> 00:07:13.750 specific recipe. It is. And it gave the coin 00:07:13.750 --> 00:07:16.790 this distinctive golden color, which distinguished 00:07:16.790 --> 00:07:19.810 it visually from a standard quarter, while completely 00:07:19.810 --> 00:07:22.589 bypassing any corporate friction by keeping the 00:07:22.589 --> 00:07:24.970 internal electromagnetic signature identical 00:07:24.970 --> 00:07:27.329 to the older coins. So the vending machines thought 00:07:27.329 --> 00:07:29.649 it was a Susan B. Anthony. Exactly. So they nailed 00:07:29.649 --> 00:07:32.850 the internal mechanics. Yeah. But they completely 00:07:32.850 --> 00:07:35.970 overcompensated on the aesthetics, like the reverse 00:07:35.970 --> 00:07:38.329 side featured the Statue of Liberty. And they 00:07:38.329 --> 00:07:40.350 actually omitted the word liberty entirely, which 00:07:40.350 --> 00:07:43.389 is Pretty bold for U .S. currency. Yeah. They 00:07:43.389 --> 00:07:45.529 were banking on the idea that the statue itself 00:07:45.529 --> 00:07:47.829 was universally recognizable enough to convey 00:07:47.829 --> 00:07:50.990 the message. But the real gimmick, like the thing 00:07:50.990 --> 00:07:54.050 that caused massive, massive headaches, was the 00:07:54.050 --> 00:07:56.310 edge of the coin. The edge lettering. Instead 00:07:56.310 --> 00:07:58.389 of stamping all the historical information on 00:07:58.389 --> 00:08:01.230 the front or back faces, they stamp the year 00:08:01.230 --> 00:08:04.870 of minting. The mint mark. 13 stars and the mottoes 00:08:04.870 --> 00:08:08.649 e pluribus unum in God we trust directly onto 00:08:08.649 --> 00:08:11.060 the rim of the coin. And here's where it gets 00:08:11.060 --> 00:08:15.079 really interesting, because if the entire goal 00:08:15.079 --> 00:08:18.439 of this multi -billion dollar program was seamless 00:08:18.439 --> 00:08:21.399 public adoption and rapid massive production. 00:08:21.579 --> 00:08:24.240 Which it was. Right. We're talking four presidents 00:08:24.240 --> 00:08:27.779 a year, hundreds of millions of coins. Why would 00:08:27.779 --> 00:08:31.519 the Mint introduce a highly complex, historically 00:08:31.519 --> 00:08:35.620 error -prone manufacturing step like edge lettering? 00:08:35.669 --> 00:08:38.629 It is a phenomenal contradiction in manufacturing 00:08:38.629 --> 00:08:41.309 logic, truly. It just seems so unnecessarily 00:08:41.309 --> 00:08:44.620 complicated. It was. To understand why it's a 00:08:44.620 --> 00:08:46.820 terrible idea for mass production, you have to 00:08:46.820 --> 00:08:49.100 look at how modern coins are actually struck. 00:08:49.779 --> 00:08:52.539 Usually, a blank piece of metal goes into a press, 00:08:52.659 --> 00:08:55.360 right? And a retaining collar holds it in place 00:08:55.360 --> 00:08:57.379 while the top and bottom dies strike it. OK, 00:08:57.379 --> 00:08:59.259 that makes sense. That collar is what gives a 00:08:59.259 --> 00:09:01.960 quarter its ridged edge. It all happens in one 00:09:01.960 --> 00:09:04.340 forceful, instantaneous strike. Boom, you have 00:09:04.340 --> 00:09:07.600 a coin. Just one step. Exactly. But to put letters 00:09:07.600 --> 00:09:09.600 on the edge, you can't do that. The coin has 00:09:09.600 --> 00:09:12.059 to be ejected from the main press, move completely 00:09:12.059 --> 00:09:14.210 across the factory. floor and fed into a separate 00:09:14.210 --> 00:09:16.629 machine. Wait, really? A totally different machine? 00:09:16.950 --> 00:09:20.350 Yes, a Shuler edge lettering machine. And that 00:09:20.350 --> 00:09:23.049 machine rolls the coin under immense pressure 00:09:23.049 --> 00:09:25.870 to imprint the text on the edge. So you're taking 00:09:25.870 --> 00:09:29.320 a streamlined single strike process. and intentionally 00:09:29.320 --> 00:09:31.340 breaking it into two separate logistical steps. 00:09:31.820 --> 00:09:34.320 You're introducing a massive mechanical bottleneck. 00:09:34.799 --> 00:09:36.799 Precisely. And the United States had not issued 00:09:36.799 --> 00:09:38.879 a circulating coin with edge lettering since 00:09:38.879 --> 00:09:42.120 the 1933 Saint -Gaudens Double Eagle. That is 00:09:42.120 --> 00:09:44.840 a long time ago. It's decades. Historically, 00:09:45.059 --> 00:09:46.700 edge lettering dates all the way back to the 00:09:46.700 --> 00:09:49.700 1790s, and its original purpose was strictly 00:09:49.700 --> 00:09:52.679 anti -theft. Really? Anti -theft. Yeah, people 00:09:52.679 --> 00:09:54.779 used to shave the edges off solid gold and silver 00:09:54.779 --> 00:09:57.100 coins to illegally hoard the precious metals. 00:09:57.799 --> 00:09:59.980 So early mints started stamping the edges with 00:09:59.980 --> 00:10:02.399 text to make any tampering immediately obvious. 00:10:02.720 --> 00:10:05.799 Oh, that's clever. But wait, these new presidential 00:10:05.799 --> 00:10:08.620 coins are made of brass and copper. Exactly. 00:10:08.919 --> 00:10:11.820 Nobody in 2007 is shaving the edges off a brass 00:10:11.820 --> 00:10:14.340 coin to melt down a fraction of a penny's worth 00:10:14.340 --> 00:10:17.250 of base metal. That's absurd. Which means the 00:10:17.250 --> 00:10:19.509 decision to use edge lettering was purely an 00:10:19.509 --> 00:10:22.029 aesthetic vanity project. They just wanted the 00:10:22.029 --> 00:10:25.269 coin to look clean and sophisticated. But introducing 00:10:25.269 --> 00:10:27.769 that secondary machine process was basically 00:10:27.769 --> 00:10:30.570 begging for mechanical failure at that scale 00:10:30.570 --> 00:10:32.710 of production anyway. Oh, and the failure was 00:10:32.710 --> 00:10:35.590 immediate. Yeah. So in February 2007, the very 00:10:35.590 --> 00:10:39.009 first coin drops, George Washington, and almost 00:10:39.009 --> 00:10:42.409 immediately an estimated 50 ,000 of these coins 00:10:42.409 --> 00:10:45.659 managed to escape the mint. without ever going 00:10:45.659 --> 00:10:47.580 through that Shuler edge lettering machine. Just 00:10:47.580 --> 00:10:49.539 completely skipped it. Bypassed it entirely. 00:10:50.620 --> 00:10:53.820 And because In God We Trust was supposed to be 00:10:53.820 --> 00:10:56.549 on the edge, The media had quickly dubbed these 00:10:56.549 --> 00:10:59.210 the godless dollars. The godless dollars. And 00:10:59.210 --> 00:11:01.529 the secondary collector market went into an absolute 00:11:01.529 --> 00:11:03.429 frenzy over these. Oh, they lost their minds. 00:11:03.570 --> 00:11:05.929 The very first godless dollar discovered and 00:11:05.929 --> 00:11:10.690 verified was sold on eBay for $600. $600 for 00:11:10.690 --> 00:11:13.629 a $1 coin. It created a gold rush mentality among 00:11:13.629 --> 00:11:15.450 corn rule hunters. Everybody was looking for 00:11:15.450 --> 00:11:17.769 them. Which highlights just an incredible irony 00:11:17.769 --> 00:11:21.009 here. The mint implements this highly complex 00:11:21.009 --> 00:11:23.509 edge lettering to make the coin look sophisticated, 00:11:23.769 --> 00:11:26.700 right? utilizing a technique originally invented 00:11:26.700 --> 00:11:29.639 to stop thieves from shaving the edges off coins. 00:11:30.059 --> 00:11:32.940 And instead, the collector hype gets so intense 00:11:32.940 --> 00:11:36.179 that people in 2007 start taking regular Washington 00:11:36.179 --> 00:11:39.549 dollars. and literally filing the edges off themselves. 00:11:39.549 --> 00:11:43.450 Yes. Just to create fake, godless errors to scam 00:11:43.450 --> 00:11:45.870 people on the internet. It is so funny. And the 00:11:45.870 --> 00:11:48.570 mechanical errors just kept compounding with 00:11:48.570 --> 00:11:51.590 every new release because the coins are fed into 00:11:51.590 --> 00:11:54.570 the edge lettering machine loosely, right? The 00:11:54.570 --> 00:11:56.929 physical mechanics of the hopper mean there is 00:11:56.929 --> 00:11:59.929 no way to control which side is facing up. It's 00:11:59.929 --> 00:12:02.529 random. Completely random. As a result, when 00:12:02.529 --> 00:12:05.009 the John Adams coin came out, some coins got 00:12:05.009 --> 00:12:07.480 stuck and went through the machine twice. So 00:12:07.480 --> 00:12:10.019 they got printed twice? Yes, resulting in double 00:12:10.019 --> 00:12:12.679 text. Sometimes the text was overlapped, sometimes 00:12:12.679 --> 00:12:14.700 the coin flipped over in the hopper, and the 00:12:14.700 --> 00:12:17.080 text was inverted. Meaning the motto would read 00:12:17.080 --> 00:12:18.899 in two different directions on the same rim. 00:12:19.139 --> 00:12:21.539 Exactly. It was chaos. I love the stories of 00:12:21.539 --> 00:12:24.059 people finding coins with the edge text upside 00:12:24.059 --> 00:12:26.539 down. Like, upside down relative to the president's 00:12:26.539 --> 00:12:28.340 face on the front. And they were trying to sell 00:12:28.340 --> 00:12:31.990 them online as highly coveted rare errors. Oh, 00:12:32.110 --> 00:12:34.830 the upside down lettering. That one is so funny 00:12:34.830 --> 00:12:38.389 because that is purely a basic law of probability. 00:12:39.029 --> 00:12:41.750 It is not a minting defect at all. Not an error. 00:12:42.029 --> 00:12:44.730 No. Since the coins fall into the edge lettering 00:12:44.730 --> 00:12:48.350 machine randomly, there is literally a 50 % chance 00:12:48.350 --> 00:12:50.610 the text will be upside down relative to the 00:12:50.610 --> 00:12:53.929 obverse. It's just a coin flip. Literally. Exactly. 00:12:54.649 --> 00:12:57.029 Yet people were convinced they had struck gold. 00:12:57.690 --> 00:13:00.870 But the most extreme mechanical failure was actually 00:13:00.870 --> 00:13:03.490 discovered by a couple in Colorado. Oh, the blank 00:13:03.490 --> 00:13:06.830 ones. Yes. They found a totally blank piece of 00:13:06.830 --> 00:13:09.730 metal. No president's face, no Statue of Liberty. 00:13:10.110 --> 00:13:12.590 It had somehow bypassed the primary striking 00:13:12.590 --> 00:13:15.710 press entirely and only received the edge lettering. 00:13:15.909 --> 00:13:18.970 That is amazing. But here is the ultimate irony 00:13:18.970 --> 00:13:21.710 of all this. The Mint was panicking over these 00:13:21.710 --> 00:13:23.769 edge lettering errors, right? They're trying 00:13:23.769 --> 00:13:26.370 to fix the assembly line chaos, completely blind 00:13:26.370 --> 00:13:27.889 to the fact that they were missing the forests 00:13:27.889 --> 00:13:29.990 for the trees. Because none of it actually mattered. 00:13:30.049 --> 00:13:32.289 Right. The general public didn't care about the 00:13:32.289 --> 00:13:34.009 text on the edge because they were refusing to 00:13:34.009 --> 00:13:36.190 even pick the coins up in the first place. That's 00:13:36.190 --> 00:13:38.490 what triggered the real nightmare. The public 00:13:38.490 --> 00:13:40.850 aggressively rejected the coins for everyday 00:13:40.850 --> 00:13:44.289 transactions. Behavioral economics tells us that 00:13:44.289 --> 00:13:46.590 changing a society's deeply ingrained habits 00:13:46.590 --> 00:13:49.830 requires either an undeniable incentive or sheer 00:13:49.830 --> 00:13:52.470 force. You can't just ask them nicely. Exactly. 00:13:52.970 --> 00:13:55.210 The coins were heavier than paper. They felt 00:13:55.210 --> 00:13:58.090 clunky in a pocket. And Americans just have a 00:13:58.090 --> 00:14:00.149 long -standing cultural preference for the one 00:14:00.149 --> 00:14:02.370 dollar paper bill. So what does this all mean? 00:14:02.610 --> 00:14:04.870 Like picture yourself as the Treasury Secretary 00:14:04.870 --> 00:14:08.289 in 2011. Yeah. You are funding a manufacturing 00:14:08.289 --> 00:14:11.850 operation that is churning out millions of coins 00:14:11.850 --> 00:14:15.049 a month that local banks literally do not want. 00:14:15.110 --> 00:14:17.190 They were sending them back. Because their customers 00:14:17.190 --> 00:14:20.509 refuse to take them as change. So by 2011, a 00:14:20.509 --> 00:14:23.789 stockpile of 1 .4 billion uncirculated dollar 00:14:23.789 --> 00:14:26.049 coins had piled up in Federal Reserve vaults. 00:14:26.269 --> 00:14:28.509 Unbelievable. If you laid those coins flat, that 00:14:28.509 --> 00:14:31.029 is our Los Angeles to Chicago highway of wasted 00:14:31.029 --> 00:14:33.220 metal. Just sitting there. You probably have 00:14:33.220 --> 00:14:34.779 a jar of loose change somewhere in your house, 00:14:35.039 --> 00:14:37.500 but imagine being a taxpayer, funding a vault, 00:14:37.620 --> 00:14:39.799 holding a billion dollars that you literally 00:14:39.799 --> 00:14:42.720 cannot give away. It's staggering. And this raises 00:14:42.720 --> 00:14:44.460 an important question about government mandates 00:14:44.460 --> 00:14:47.639 versus consumer behavior. Because other countries 00:14:47.639 --> 00:14:50.240 have done this right like Canada. Yes, Canada 00:14:50.240 --> 00:14:52.860 with the loony or the European Union with the 00:14:52.860 --> 00:14:55.440 one and two euro coins They have successfully 00:14:55.440 --> 00:14:58.279 transitioned their populations to high denomination 00:14:58.279 --> 00:15:00.559 coins, but they did it differently, right? They 00:15:00.559 --> 00:15:03.779 achieved that by forcefully removing the equivalent 00:15:03.779 --> 00:15:06.279 paper note from circulation. You had no choice 00:15:06.679 --> 00:15:09.279 The United States Government Accountability Office, 00:15:09.360 --> 00:15:12.740 the GAO, they actually released a detailed report 00:15:12.740 --> 00:15:14.960 stating that replacing the one dollar bill with 00:15:14.960 --> 00:15:17.799 a one dollar coin would save the government about 00:15:17.799 --> 00:15:21.139 five point five billion dollars over 30 years. 00:15:21.220 --> 00:15:23.899 Five point five billion. Just because the physical 00:15:23.899 --> 00:15:26.799 lifespan of a metal coin is decades. Whereas 00:15:26.799 --> 00:15:29.419 a cotton and linen paper dollar bill wears out 00:15:29.419 --> 00:15:32.080 in a few years. Right. It constantly has to be 00:15:32.080 --> 00:15:35.220 shredded and reprinted. Exactly. The macroeconomic 00:15:35.220 --> 00:15:38.090 math was entirely. solid. But the US government 00:15:38.090 --> 00:15:40.909 lacked the political will to actually stop printing 00:15:40.909 --> 00:15:42.870 the paper dollar bill. They didn't want the backlash. 00:15:43.450 --> 00:15:46.350 No, so they gave the public a choice. And when 00:15:46.350 --> 00:15:48.870 given the choice between adapting to a pocketful 00:15:48.870 --> 00:15:51.850 of heavy brass coins or sticking with the familiar 00:15:51.850 --> 00:15:55.450 lightweight paper bill, Consumers will always 00:15:55.450 --> 00:15:57.769 choose the path of least resistance. Every single 00:15:57.769 --> 00:16:00.509 time. That lack of political follow through is 00:16:00.509 --> 00:16:04.549 how a potential $5 .5 billion in long -term savings 00:16:04.549 --> 00:16:08.129 mutated into a massive logistical burden of storing 00:16:08.129 --> 00:16:10.629 unused metal. And it got to the point where the 00:16:10.629 --> 00:16:12.710 Federal Reserve was literally running out of 00:16:12.710 --> 00:16:15.470 reinforced floor space to hold the physical weight 00:16:15.470 --> 00:16:18.210 of these coins. The floors were buckling. So 00:16:18.210 --> 00:16:20.809 finally, in December 2011, Vice President Joe 00:16:20.809 --> 00:16:23.450 Biden and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner had 00:16:23.450 --> 00:16:26.340 to officially step in. They suspended the minting 00:16:26.340 --> 00:16:28.279 of presidential coins for general circulation, 00:16:28.700 --> 00:16:30.580 which effectively pulled the plug on the grand 00:16:30.580 --> 00:16:32.659 experiment. They recognized that continuing mass 00:16:32.659 --> 00:16:35.059 production was just throwing taxpayer money into 00:16:35.059 --> 00:16:37.679 a dark room. The program didn't die entirely, 00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:40.120 though. Starting with Chester A. Arthur, the 00:16:40.120 --> 00:16:43.100 mint pivoted. They continued to produce the series, 00:16:43.139 --> 00:16:46.039 but in vastly reduced quantities, selling them 00:16:46.039 --> 00:16:49.480 at a premium solely directly to collectors, straight 00:16:49.480 --> 00:16:52.490 through to the Ronald Reagan coin in 2016. Which 00:16:52.490 --> 00:16:54.409 brings us back to that dead for two years rule 00:16:54.409 --> 00:16:56.470 we discussed at the start. Ah, yes. When the 00:16:56.470 --> 00:16:58.809 chronological release schedule hit 2016, Jimmy 00:16:58.809 --> 00:17:01.509 Carter, Bill Clinton, the two George Bushes, 00:17:01.529 --> 00:17:03.789 and then current President Barack Obama were 00:17:03.789 --> 00:17:06.250 all skipped over. because they were still alive. 00:17:06.450 --> 00:17:09.089 Which creates a glaring chronological gap in 00:17:09.089 --> 00:17:11.849 the numismatic collection. And because the original 00:17:11.849 --> 00:17:14.029 legislation strictly defined the parameters of 00:17:14.029 --> 00:17:16.130 the program, adding those skipped presidents 00:17:16.130 --> 00:17:19.130 later requires Congress to draft and pass entirely 00:17:19.130 --> 00:17:22.329 new standalone legislation. It is such a hassle. 00:17:22.609 --> 00:17:25.470 It is, which they did in 2020 to authorize a 00:17:25.470 --> 00:17:27.609 coin for George H .W. Bush after his passing. 00:17:28.009 --> 00:17:31.609 And just recently, in February 2025, a new bill 00:17:31.609 --> 00:17:33.849 was introduced to extend the program following 00:17:33.849 --> 00:17:36.740 the death of Jimmy Carter. OK, so you have the 00:17:36.740 --> 00:17:40.119 main coin program piling up in vaults, creating 00:17:40.119 --> 00:17:42.799 this monumental logistical and political nightmare. 00:17:43.940 --> 00:17:46.160 But while all of that was happening in the background, 00:17:47.380 --> 00:17:50.099 there was a parallel ultra premium version of 00:17:50.099 --> 00:17:53.579 the program quietly running right alongside it. 00:17:53.700 --> 00:17:56.480 The gold coins. Yes, it was like this golden 00:17:56.480 --> 00:17:59.599 spouse's side quest, bringing its own set of 00:17:59.599 --> 00:18:02.740 bizarre historical workarounds. The first spouse 00:18:02.740 --> 00:18:05.970 program. The congressional legislation stipulated 00:18:05.970 --> 00:18:08.009 that the United States would honor the spouses 00:18:08.009 --> 00:18:11.210 of each president with a half -ounce $10 gold 00:18:11.210 --> 00:18:14.289 coin. released on the exact same chronological 00:18:14.289 --> 00:18:16.450 schedule as the presidential dollars. And to 00:18:16.450 --> 00:18:18.609 be clear, these were not intended to be pocket 00:18:18.609 --> 00:18:20.970 change. Definitely not. These were heavily premium 00:18:20.970 --> 00:18:23.390 investment items. Depending on the volatility 00:18:23.390 --> 00:18:25.390 of the global gold market at the time of release, 00:18:25.750 --> 00:18:29.250 they were priced anywhere from roughly $430 to 00:18:29.250 --> 00:18:32.769 over $1200 each. Extremely expensive. And because 00:18:32.769 --> 00:18:35.309 of that high price point, the mintages were incredibly 00:18:35.309 --> 00:18:38.230 low, with some specific releases dropping under 00:18:38.230 --> 00:18:40.950 2000 units produced. But if we connect this to 00:18:40.950 --> 00:18:43.470 the bigger picture, the first spouse program 00:18:43.470 --> 00:18:47.269 really highlights the incredibly rigid, uncompromising 00:18:47.269 --> 00:18:49.650 nature of congressional legislation. How so? 00:18:50.089 --> 00:18:52.390 Well, the law explicitly dictated that a spouse 00:18:52.390 --> 00:18:55.490 coin must be issued alongside every single president. 00:18:56.049 --> 00:18:58.789 But history is messy. It doesn't fit neatly into 00:18:58.789 --> 00:19:01.710 a legislative spreadsheet. What happens if a 00:19:01.710 --> 00:19:04.680 president was unmarried during his term? or was 00:19:04.680 --> 00:19:07.319 a widower. Right, because Thomas Jefferson, Andrew 00:19:07.319 --> 00:19:10.319 Jackson, Martin Van Buren, James B. Cannon, none 00:19:10.319 --> 00:19:12.880 of them had a first spouse during their time 00:19:12.880 --> 00:19:15.859 in office. Exactly. So the Mint was forced to 00:19:15.859 --> 00:19:19.400 create these generic, symbolic liberty designs 00:19:19.400 --> 00:19:22.839 emblematic of their respective eras, just to 00:19:22.839 --> 00:19:25.319 fulfill the legal quota mandated by Congress. 00:19:25.420 --> 00:19:27.460 They had to put something on the coin. But the 00:19:27.460 --> 00:19:29.920 ultimate trivia fact... Like the one detail that 00:19:29.920 --> 00:19:31.720 perfectly encapsulates the blind bureaucracy 00:19:31.720 --> 00:19:34.980 of this entire multi -year initiative involves 00:19:34.980 --> 00:19:38.119 our 21st president, Chester A. Arthur. This is 00:19:38.119 --> 00:19:40.819 a remarkable historical workaround. It's so weird. 00:19:41.119 --> 00:19:44.059 Chester A. Arthur's wife, Ellen, died before 00:19:44.059 --> 00:19:47.259 he ever took office. He served his entire term 00:19:47.259 --> 00:19:50.960 as a widower. The law demanded a companion coin 00:19:50.960 --> 00:19:53.839 for his release, but there was no First Lady 00:19:53.839 --> 00:19:56.740 to feature. Right. So rather than simply skipping 00:19:56.740 --> 00:20:00.039 the release, the legislation explicitly directed 00:20:00.039 --> 00:20:03.099 the mint to feature Alice Paul on his companion 00:20:03.099 --> 00:20:07.140 coin. And Alice Paul was a famous highly influential 00:20:07.140 --> 00:20:09.920 suffragist. Yes, she was. But she was never married 00:20:09.920 --> 00:20:12.000 to Chester A. Arthur. She was never a First Lady. 00:20:12.339 --> 00:20:15.259 Her only connection to him whatsoever was the 00:20:15.259 --> 00:20:17.579 historical coincidence that she happened to be 00:20:17.579 --> 00:20:19.640 born during his presidential term. That was the 00:20:19.640 --> 00:20:22.319 only link. It is exactly like a failed video 00:20:22.319 --> 00:20:25.440 game releasing a $500 VIP collector's edition 00:20:25.440 --> 00:20:28.890 and then forcing you to download bizarre logically 00:20:28.890 --> 00:20:31.309 disconnected content just because the developers 00:20:31.309 --> 00:20:33.250 needed to fill a specific line of code. They 00:20:33.250 --> 00:20:35.369 just needed to fill a spreadsheet cell to comply 00:20:35.369 --> 00:20:37.789 with the letter of the law. It's hilarious. It 00:20:37.789 --> 00:20:40.069 is the ultimate victory of bureaucratic compliance 00:20:40.069 --> 00:20:42.269 over common sense. And just like the massive 00:20:42.269 --> 00:20:45.250 circulation program, this premium gold line couldn't 00:20:45.250 --> 00:20:47.609 escape the manufacturing chaos either. Oh, of 00:20:47.609 --> 00:20:49.789 course not. Even at the highest premium levels 00:20:49.789 --> 00:20:52.150 with drastically reduced production numbers, 00:20:52.670 --> 00:20:57.019 errors slipped through. In 2007, the Mint accidentally 00:20:57.019 --> 00:20:59.400 struck in Abigail Adams of verse the front of 00:20:59.400 --> 00:21:02.140 the coin with the Louisa Adams reverse. Oh, wow. 00:21:02.359 --> 00:21:05.160 Yeah, they created a highly sought after mule 00:21:05.160 --> 00:21:07.839 error coin, proving that the logistical strain 00:21:07.839 --> 00:21:10.619 of this program impacted literally every single 00:21:10.619 --> 00:21:13.720 tier of production. So we started with a multi 00:21:13.720 --> 00:21:16.430 -billion dollar ambition. completely inspired 00:21:16.430 --> 00:21:19.210 by the massive senior success of the state quarters. 00:21:20.089 --> 00:21:21.930 The treasury genuinely thought they had found 00:21:21.930 --> 00:21:24.630 the golden ticket to generate endless revenue 00:21:24.630 --> 00:21:27.069 by forcing a new denomination into the public's 00:21:27.069 --> 00:21:29.609 hands. They were so sure it would work. And instead, 00:21:29.710 --> 00:21:32.289 they engineered a coin that required an edge 00:21:32.289 --> 00:21:34.150 lettering process that had been functionally 00:21:34.150 --> 00:21:36.490 obsolete for circulation coins since the 1930s. 00:21:36.589 --> 00:21:39.150 A terrible idea. And that decision resulted in 00:21:39.150 --> 00:21:42.220 the infamous godless errors. the overlap text 00:21:42.220 --> 00:21:44.900 and the upside down edge lettering that sent 00:21:44.900 --> 00:21:47.140 the secondary collector market into an absolute 00:21:47.140 --> 00:21:49.500 frenzy. A frenzy which didn't matter at all to 00:21:49.500 --> 00:21:52.299 the general public who hated the heavy clunky 00:21:52.299 --> 00:21:54.859 coins so much they outright refused to use them. 00:21:55.359 --> 00:21:57.599 And that consumer rejection forced the government 00:21:57.599 --> 00:22:00.900 to stockpile 1 .4 billion of them in reinforced 00:22:00.900 --> 00:22:03.200 vaults stretching that equivalent distance of 00:22:03.200 --> 00:22:07.789 Los Angeles to Chicago. All while quietly selling 00:22:07.789 --> 00:22:10.630 thousand dollar gold coins featuring suffragists 00:22:10.630 --> 00:22:13.549 pretending to be presidential spouses just to 00:22:13.549 --> 00:22:15.910 satisfy a rigid legal loophole. It's quite the 00:22:15.910 --> 00:22:18.470 legacy. It serves as a profound lesson in the 00:22:18.470 --> 00:22:21.549 limits of top -down design. You can engineer 00:22:21.549 --> 00:22:24.690 a coin to perfectly match the internal electromagnetic 00:22:24.690 --> 00:22:27.990 signature of an old Susan B. Anthony dollar to 00:22:27.990 --> 00:22:30.150 appease the vending machine industry. You can 00:22:30.150 --> 00:22:32.809 pass federal laws mandating its production. Yes. 00:22:33.099 --> 00:22:35.960 But you cannot legislate consumer behavior. The 00:22:35.960 --> 00:22:38.059 American public's simple, stubborn preference 00:22:38.059 --> 00:22:41.339 for the familiar paper dollar bill entirely dismantled 00:22:41.339 --> 00:22:43.380 a multi -billion dollar government strategy. 00:22:43.740 --> 00:22:46.160 And that leaves us with one final, fascinating 00:22:46.160 --> 00:22:48.720 detail from our sources today. Because by the 00:22:48.720 --> 00:22:51.880 end of the year 2022, that massive vault busting 00:22:51.880 --> 00:22:55.180 stockpile of unused dollar coins had slowly, 00:22:55.460 --> 00:22:58.619 painstakingly dwindled down to 888 million coins. 00:22:58.880 --> 00:23:01.240 Still a mountain. Still a mountain. And the Federal 00:23:01.240 --> 00:23:04.490 Reserve estimates that Based on current minimal 00:23:04.490 --> 00:23:07.470 usage rates, this remaining inventory will finally 00:23:07.470 --> 00:23:11.289 run out around the year 2038. Which is a projection 00:23:11.289 --> 00:23:14.210 heavily reliant on the assumption that the slow 00:23:14.210 --> 00:23:17.029 trickle of demand we see today remains constant 00:23:17.029 --> 00:23:19.589 for the next decade. Right, so think about that 00:23:19.589 --> 00:23:22.190 timeline for a second. As we move closer and 00:23:22.190 --> 00:23:25.470 closer every single day to a completely cashless 00:23:25.470 --> 00:23:29.170 digital society, like a world where you pay for 00:23:29.170 --> 00:23:31.130 your morning coffee by tapping your phone or 00:23:31.130 --> 00:23:33.130 your smartwatch against a screen. It's where 00:23:33.130 --> 00:23:36.670 we're heading. Will those 888 million physical 00:23:36.670 --> 00:23:38.930 metal coins sitting in the dark ever actually 00:23:38.930 --> 00:23:41.430 be used by the time 2038 rolls around? It's hard 00:23:41.430 --> 00:23:43.529 to imagine. Or will they simply remain locked 00:23:43.529 --> 00:23:46.099 away in that cavernous vault forever? eventually 00:23:46.099 --> 00:23:48.759 becoming an obsolete ironic monument to an early 00:23:48.759 --> 00:23:51.279 21st century attempt to forcefully change how 00:23:51.279 --> 00:23:53.519 we spend our money. It definitely makes you wonder 00:23:53.519 --> 00:23:55.579 what else is quietly sitting in the dark just 00:23:55.579 --> 00:23:56.480 waiting to be forgotten.