TirithRR wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
You don't understand what "legal tender" means in practical terms. Well, you have a childlike understanding of it, I suppose.
Right. Stinging retort from the guy who, last night, obviously had no idea that commemorative coins were legal tender
Just curious are these commemorative coins from the US Mint, or the "private non monetary mint" you hear about on the TV commercials trying to sell you coins clad in 99.9999%, that's four 9s, pure gold.
From the US Mint. They commonly mint, say, a $5 gold coin commemorating Gulf War veterans. Then they sell them as proofs for $100 or something and the $95 difference (or whatever the production difference is) goes towards some veterans program. But the coin itself is legally worth $5 if you wanted to use it to buy a Big Mac. You probably
wouldn't for the same reason you wouldn't use that one upside-down airplane stamp to mail off your water bill payment but you
could and it's as acceptable as a five dollar bill. Presumably (I'm guessing) part of their value comes from the fact that anyone can create some knock-off "gold coin" with an eagle on it but only the US Mint can add a denomination. Copying some Franklin Mint coin is copyright/trademark infringement; copying a US Mint coin is counterfeiting.
Gbaji said that such coins don't count as "real US currency without Congressional action" which is just wrong in this case. Now he's frantically backpedaling and saying
OF COURSE he knew they were real just, you know...
Anyway, have fun watching him flip out some more and try to cover for his remarks. Should be good times.
Edited, Jan 8th 2013 6:30pm by Jophiel