Coin Websites, a new coin directory complete with 44 topic categories and 196 sites, was recently launched by Michael Zielinski. Collectors may already be familiar with the work of Zielinski, who provides a daily round up of coin collecting news from around the web via Coin Update.

Zielinski’s new coin directory looks to be promising. Unlike so many other Internet directories, Coin Websites is not clouded with a ton of other information.

It’s dedicated solely to quality coin sites and you don’t have to dig around to find them. The clean, simple website design makes it easy.

The directory spawned from what many collectors and dealers can relate to — trying to keep track of the many great coin related information resources on the Internet. On the subject, Zielinski commented,

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The U.S. House of Representatives agreed Tuesday to a minor Senate Amendment for H.R. 634, the American Veterans Disabled for Life Commemorative Coin Act. The coin legislation is nearly cemented for approval and signing by President Bush.

When H.R. 634 becomes law, it will require the United States Mint to issue 350,000 $1 silver coins in the year 2010 to commemorate "veterans who became disabled for life while serving in the Armed Forces of the United States."

Coin surcharges - money wasted or used for memorial?

The legislation also mandates a $10 surcharge for each coin sale that would go to the Disabled Veterans’ LIFE Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose sole purpose is to raise the funds necessary to build a Memorial.

The silver dollar coin will be for a notable cause, as would a memorial. However, looking closer at the effectiveness of the Disabled Veterans’ LIFE Memorial Foundation in attaining the $65 million plus needed to start the memorial may leave some collectors troubled.

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When paper dollars are squared up against $1 coins, who comes out the winner and why? Clearly, as the "fun facts" money table shows, the one dollar bill wins out as the currency of choice by a wide, wide margin.

$1 Bill versus $1 Coin: Which is the Winner Today?

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Circulating US coins are produced by the United Sates Mint facilities in Denver and Philadelphia. Most everyone is familiar with the "P" and "D" mintmarks on daily pocket change. Those are simply letter indicators for where the coins were minted, Denver or Philadelphia.

But did you know what location is responsible for minting the most coins? Or, whether the Mint is producing less or more circulating change these days?

For the first question, a quick assumption could be that Denver and Philadelphia mint circulating coins at an even rate. That is not always so.

For the second question, although the Mint issues billions of coins each year at an absolutely amazing rate, the demand for them has been falling by billions and billions compared to the late 90s and early 2000s.

While the population is increasing, transactions through plastic — credit cards and the like — are as well.

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U.S. treasure hunting company Odyssey Marine Exploration struck gold twice in a single week. The company announced Thursday it had discovered new shipwreck sites near the English Channel containing Colonial period artifacts.

That announcement came on the heels of Tuesday’s revelation that Odyssey’s adventures will be spotlighted on a Discovery Channel shipwreck series that will be seen around the world.

Odyssey has been fighting a huge legal battle with Spain over ownership of 17-tons of Colonial-era coins recovered in May of 2007. While those legal battles will wage on with several hundred million at stake, the latest news from Odyssey is fortuitous in its timing.

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2008 First Spouse gold coins and bronze medals honoring Louisa Adams may be purchased from the United States Mint Thursday, May 28. The Louisa Adams gold coins are the second for 2008 and sixth in the First Spouse Gold Coin Series - a series that started off blazing hot, but have drastically cooled due to prices and demand.

Martha Washington, Abigail Adams and Jefferson’s Liberty First Spouse gold coins flew of the Mint shelves and sold at records speeds — within hours of their availability.

The fourth and fifth coins — Dolley Madison and Elizabeth Monroe — sputtered. Their demand in the secondary market cooled and the high price of gold made buying them a larger obstacle.

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One of the pleasant side affects of the Coin Modernization and Taxpayer Savings Act of 2008, which would change the metallic composition of pennies and nickels to steel, is the revelation of current and past costs in minting coins.

Figures of coin production expenses are interesting in themselves, but charting their trends is another reminder of the volatility of metals within coins, like that of copper, zinc and nickel.

The cost of minting each penny and nickel today are:

• Penny at 1.26 cents
• Nickel at 7.7 cents

As a side note, the U.S. Mint also provided recent costs to mint the dime, which is 4 cents, the quarter at 10 cents and $1 coins at 16 cents each.

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The House debated on the legislation and finally voted yesterday to change the metallic composition of the penny and 5-cent nickel to a less expensive copper-colored steel.

Although the prices of copper, zinc and nickel metals in coins have declined in recent months, the penny and 5-cent nickel still cost more to make than what they’re worth—resulting in a reported loss of about $100 million every year, or $1 billion over a decade.

It now costs about 1.26 cents to make the penny and about 7.7 cents to make the nickel.

House bill “H.R. 5512, the Coin Modernization and Taxpayer Savings Act of 2008” would seek to change those manufacturing costs by using copper-colored steal, which could cut the cost of making pennies down to about 0.7 cents each. But its recent passage in the House is no guarantee it’ll make its way to the White House for signing.

H.R. 5512 must still go through the Senate and then the President, and not everyone is happy with the current legislation.

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A "coin stuck in the throat" headline is not likely what you would expect on a coin news site, but it’s a subject that nevertheless is serious and likely provokes at least some extra interest to coin collectors. It did at least for me…

Having had the unwelcome experience of watching a family member choke on a small object and then get rushed to the emergency room, it seems logical for medical procedures to focus on retrieving throat-lodged objects by pulling them back out through the mouth. But that’s not always the case with stuck coins, nor should it be according to new research findings.

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A new poll by Harris Interactive® reflects American’s favor for the Lincoln penny, its preference for the $1 bill and the uphill battle the U.S. Mint is fighting to get new Presidential $1 coins into daily circulation.

Presidential $1 dollar coins not making it into circulation

For the latter two topics, there has been no shortage of articles within numismatic publications relaying the overwhelming realities of the near impossible task of a dollar coin competing head on with the lighter, and more convenient to use dollar bill. And while the word "many" has been used to describe those who have not yet seen the Presidential $1 coins used in circulation since their 2007 introduction, an overwhelming 75% of Harris Poll respondents say they have not seen a single dollar coin in circulation.

Given the U.S. Mint produced nearly 941 million presidential $1 coins in 2007 alone, or enough for every U.S. man, woman and child to each have three, the 75% figure highlights that while the coins may be attractive to collectors, so far they have not proven practical for use. In that regard, they lose to the paper dollar just like previous $1 coins.

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