In God We Trust and the New Dollar Coins
It appears that there are a couple emails forwarding about that claim the treasurer has removed the phrase "In God We Trust" from the new dollar coins. Here's the text of one that I received today.
U.S. Government to Release New Dollar Coins
You guessed it
'IN GOD WE TRUST'
IS GONE!!!Who originally put 'In God We Trust' onto our currency? My bet is that it was one of the Presidents on these coins. All our U.S. Government has done is Dishonor them, and disgust me!!! If ever there was a reason to boycott something, THIS IS IT!!!!
DO NOT ACCEPT THE NEW DOLLAR COINS AS CHANGE
Together we can force them out of circulation. Please send to all on you mail list !!!
The email is often accompanied with a picture of the front of the coin. I don't know if the person who originated this is just too stupid to have caught any of the press releases, media coverage, or even taken a moment to look at the edge of the coin.
The US Treasury is playing with a "new" technology called Edge-Incused Inscription. As the name implies it places an inscription on the edge of the coin. In this case, there are three inscriptions on the edge of coin: 'E Plurbis Unum', 'In God We Trust', and the year and mint mark (2007 P for the one in my pocket). Check out the treasury site for more info on this unique US coin.
Perhaps the person isn't so dumb and this is just a way to get the religious right to boycott yet another attempt to popularize the dollar coin. Get over it already people, the dollar paper bill is obsolete and should be retired. Coins are cheaper to mint, last much longer and save our government money.
Oh, and just in case you were wondering, 'In God We Trust' replaced 'E Plurbus Unum' as the national motto in 1956 by an act of Congress, 120 years after the last of these presidents died.
There is one more possible explanation here. The person who authored the first email got one of the errors released by the mint without the side inscription. They were so angry they missed an opportunity to sell the "mistake" on ebay for over $300. The price has settled down to a more reasonable $50 so If you happen to find one without the inscription, don't refuse it, sell it on eBay.
October 12th, 2007 at 9:05 am
edge lettering was used some time ago. You can find it on some 1933 coins, the thing is that all coins wear on the edges from daily use, so within 10 years of the release of these coins, if they are regularly circulated and used, then the edge will get worn off. They should put the quote on the face or back of the coin as this is the only way to prevent it from happening.