Mystery of the Susan $

Press, 2 October 1979, Page 19

Mystery of the Susan $

“Economist” correspondent

Although the United States uvuar may go and down in a sometimes perplexing way, it does not disappear uom vie\» — unless, tnat is, it is the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin. The coin was introduced in July amid much fanfare. It was small enough to fit a slot machine, it was said, and light enough to be carried in large quantities in pockets. It would last 15 years which is the maximum life of a paper bill, and would thereby save a SI OOM expansion at the bureau of engraving and printing. Best of all. it was a triumph for the women's movement, balancing the seventy masculine eagle-on-the-moon motif of the reverse with the sober head of Miss Anthony, the pioneer of women’s suffrage. Since then, the coin has sunk into oblivion. Sears, Roebuck and Bloomingdales report few sightings. It is rumoured that the coin is being hoarded by collectors in socks and

mattresses up and down tlte country, althougn it has scarcely more inherent value tnan the dollar bill; it is made of copper sandwiched in copper-nic-kel alloy, and each coin costs 3 cents to produce. More plausible is the theory that the coins are in limbo somewhere between the mint and the Federal Reserve, which distributes them. It is stiil more likely that they are languishing in the bank vaults for lack of takers. Americans say they do not like the coin because it is too easily confused with the quarter. That is only part of the story. They also distrust it because it is neither paper, nor silver like many of the old dollar coins; and because it has “an old woman’’ on it, whose credit is obviously weaker than George Washington’s.

Such superstitions might have been expected. The $2 bill, reintroduced in

1976 after a disappearance of 38 years, is reputed to have a curse on it because it used to be the most popular bid at racetracks. The way to remove the curse is either to tear a corner off, or to keep it hidden in a drawer — where most of the bills still seem to be.

The original idea was to make the dollar coin and the $2 bill so popular that the dollar bill could be phased out together with the penny. Where coins and bills are concerned, however, there is no logic in the public’s emotions. By all accounts the Susan B. Anthony dollar is still less popular and less

“lucky” than the old cumbersom Eisenhower dollar.

As for the penny, which might be thought to have been overtaken by inflation, it has such a hold on popular feeling that the treasury has abandoned any plans to do away with it.

Can the Susan B. Anthony dollar be saved? The treasury’s remedies already verge on the desparate. It has threatened to remove all the dollar bills, some 3 billion of them, from the market. But in case that threat misfires there is also a softly worded colour brochure, reminding the public that the dollar coin cannot be torn in half

and, most usefully, makes a warning noise when dropped in the street.