Golden or Gold

There has been a lot of talk about gold these days—how it is at an high time high and is the investment to buy (yes—maybe before it hit this peak—not so much now) Gold futures saw a record high-- 978.50 Friday. And where it is stored—there’s the obvious place—Fort Knox and also West Point but more than $200 billion of it is—as anyone who has seen Die Hard with a Vengeance (aka Die Hard 3) knows-- way underground in downtown Manhattan under the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

But what about another type of gold —a coin specifically. For another type of collector, or investor. The Sacagawea dollar coin. Today the President signed a bill that ensures that the $1 Sacagawea coin will still be minted in 2008—but not as pocket change. It will only be minted in 2008 for coin collectors.

It seems there was a glitch in a law last year that said 2009 coins would be produced, forgetting about the 2008 coins that needed to be minted for all those collectors. The reverse of the 2009 coins will be changed periodically to highlight different Native American topics.

The Sacagawea coin is quite beautiful. And according to the United States Mint’s website http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/golden_dollar_coin/index.cfm?action=sacDesign here is the coins composition:
“The dollar coin features distinguishing traits including: a golden color, extra-wide border, smooth edge like the nickel's, and specially designed alloy.
Specifically, the Golden Dollar is: 8.1 grams in weight, 2 mm thick, and 26.5 mm in diameter.
The coins physical makeup is a three-layer clad construction - pure copper sandwiched between and metallurgically bonded to outer layers of manganese brass.


Manganese brass composition:
77% copper
12% zinc
7% manganese
4% nickel



Golden Dollar's overall composition:
88.5% copper
6.0% zinc
3.5% manganese
2% nickel "

It seems that all that is gold, is not gold.

Copyright 2008 Kathryn Fallon klaatukafe