U.S. Mint Loses They Damn Mind

The other day, I was picking up some change off of the coffee table, and noticed an odd looking coin. "What foreign currency have I been duped into taking now," I asked myself. Upon closer inspection, I realized that it wasn't a krone or a drachma I was looking at, but a U.S. nickel. And a very goofy nickel, at that (see picture above).

Here's a question: Why redesign something that has been the same since 1938, the first year of the "Jefferson" nickel? I realize that eventually people get tired of the "same old, same old." This is why car companies change car models every five years or so ("The Dodge Dart: All New for 1967"), why household goods companies add new ingredients to their products ("Now with Teflon!"). Manufacturers know that people won't buy a product if they get bored with it, so they mix it up to keep it new and fresh.

But, see, those are things that you have to buy. If you don't like them, you don't spend money them. The nickel is a different story. It is money. People are going to use it regardless. It could have a picture of a turd, with the slogan, "Fuck you, Jesus!" and people would still use it, because they have no choice.

So, why change it? Did they get some polling data that indicated that use of the nickel was down, due to its 67 year old design? Last year, the nickel went through a bit of a makeover, with the reverse of the coin containing a couple of new designs. The same has been going on with the quarter, the reverse now representing the States of the Union, but the front of the quarter is still the same. Paper money has also undergone a transformation, but this is to combat counterfeiting: a problem not relevant in coinage. (Wait until we get goofy, foreign-looking, colored paper money!)

The nice thing about the coins was that they were all, stylistically, the same: The profile of the President on one side, the whatever on the other side. Now, we have an "All New for 2005" nickel that doesn't look like any other piece of currency. What's up with only half of Jefferson's head? When I first picked up the coin, I expected to turn it over and see the other half. (I was disappointed to find a buffalo, returning to the back after a 67 year absence.) Tres ugly! Maybe the U.S. Mint will return to their senses and put the nickel back the way it was. Or, worse, make all the other coins look like that. It would make for some ugly coins, but would make for a neat history lesson for our kids: "When I was a boy, little Jimmy, coins had the President's entire head on them! What crazy times we lived in!!"