This nation was founded on the premise of capitalism and freedom, but yet we still choose to be stupid...

The mint misses so many opportunities to actually capitalize on their audience, it's amazing to me that it still exists. They run some things into the ground, even after years of unprofitability, Congress makes stupid decisions about how to run the mint and the Secret Service meddles where they don't belong... Ok, admitedly that's about as anti-American as I can get. I bleed the ole' red, white and blue and as such believe we can fix anything that's broke and be a stronger nation for it.

By this time, if your still reading, your wondering what in the world this has to do with the '74 aluminum pattern cent. Well, as a Lincoln collecter, this is one of those holy grail coins that we all wish we could own.

The mint made 1,579,324 of these beauties back in '74 and when the bottom fell out of the metals market they make the insane decision to scrap them! The overall cost of aluminum was about .001348 in 1974, meaning that these probably cost less than a half cent to make, so why wouldn't the mint have come up with a better plan than to throw away these sunken costs?

Wouldn't it have been much more sensible to sell these off one at a time? Selling the coins for a buck in 74 would have equated to $4.55 in 2009 dollars - we pay far more than that today for mint products. They could have returned 200 times the money spent. No matter how the mint felt about collectors, they surely couldn't have been stupid enough to use this as a reason to snub the collector - could they??? However, they probably would have developed a packaging that would have cost ninety-nine and half cents!!! A hardwood box with velvet lining and an original copy of the legislation authorizing their coinage - when the collector would have been happy with a 2x2.

Well let's see --- the government goes back to the well over and over again... The 1933 double eagle, the 1964 D Peace Dollar, the 1974 Aluminum Cent, the 10 .999 fine gold Sacs that sit at Fort Knox and so on and so on... I guess that answers the question - they go out of there way to screw with the very people they serve!

Isn't it supposed to be Government of the people, by the people? We all should protest the piracy of the 1933 Gold Double Eagles and the non-monetized '74 Aluminum cents - after all these were made by the people for the people - weren't they???

I'll never see a day that I have an opportunity to own either coin, but we do live in a free country and government property really is ours and I just want the ability to own what is rightfully mine.

A bit more political than I intended this post to be, but I'm sure many of us, as collectors and American's, feel the same way. I think I'm going to write my Congressman - so he can fill up his circular file.

Thanks for reading and happy collecting!

Todd