Saving dollars with coins

Over and over, Americans have proven they don't like dollar coins.

Whether the face of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Susan B. Anthony, Sacagawea or the nation's early presidents graced the coin, Americans haven't found one they've been willing to embrace, let alone carry.

(As if to emphasize that point, the U.S. Mint halted making presidential coins in December - after commemorating the otherwise undistinguished James Garfield - because nobody wanted them. That was true even in Virginia, which claims seven of America's first 20 presidents.)

This would be an unimportant matter save for one fact: Dollar coins would save America a ton of money over time.

Actually, trading dollar bills for coins would save America 1,303.59 tons of money every year, averaged over 30 years. That's the weight of $146 million in the nation's current dollar coins.

That weight, of course, is also one of the reasons Americans have been so reluctant to adopt the dollar-coin habit. The brass-manganese coin is relatively heavy: 8.1 grams each. That's certainly heftier than the 1 gram dollar bills they would replace.

But coins are also far more durable, which means they don't need to be replaced very often. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing estimates a dollar bill costs 4.2 cents to manufacture and lasts 40 months (earlier estimates have been closer to 24 months). A dollar coin costs somewhere south of 20 cents to make, and it lasts until somebody loses or destroys it.

Add in less expensive handling and processing, and the case for dollar coins is made.

Except for the fact that dollar coins are heavy.

A U.S. Governmental Accountability Office report, issued last week, said that previous efforts to increase public acceptance of the $1 coin did not succeed in part because the dollar bill remained in circulation. Other countries, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, said the public accepted the coin only when notes were no longer available. Public resistance, authorities said, dissipated within a few years.

The report included a variety of possible scenarios for replacing a bill with coins. All of them raised objections for one reason or another.

Ramping up coin production is expensive, ensuring high initial costs. The private sector, the Federal Reserve warned, would spend money adapting. The future costs of metals are more volatile than paper and therefore difficult to predict.

But nations around the world faced these problems and resolved them decades ago. They made the move for one simple reason: Coins are cheaper than bills.

In America, even this cautious GAO study predicts $4.4 billion in savings over 30 years. That's tons of money - and reason for us finally to trade paper for metal.