Ed Ranks Circulating Coins of the United States Dollar

U.S. COINS! Fun! There are six presently in active circulation, although two of those six are no longer having new coins minted for mass release (only for collectors). Here they are, ranked:

6. Half Dollar (50¢)

Too big + nobody uses it. Boo.

Very impractical. This is the largest circulating coin in both size and weight, being 1.2 inches in diameter. It's twice the weight of the quarter. You never see anyone use these. If you tried to, a cashier would probably look at you funny. They might evens say the coin is fake or not legal currency. Just like with a $2 bill. While technically the U.S. Mint ceased production of the coin for general circulation in 2002, it is still legally in circulation and the Mint still produces them every year for collectors. I also don't agree with the concept that the largest coin shouldn't have the most value. It just makes no sense to me.

• What is it made of?  91.67% copper, 8.33% nickel (exactly the same as a Dime and Quarter below)
  
• Who is on the front? JFK
• Who should be on the front? Eh, JFK is fine. Nobody uses this coin though so who cares?
• What is on the back? The Presidential Seal, which is absolutely be the laziest of all reverses
• What should be on the back?  JFK and RFK high-five'ing as they double team Marilyn Monroe. 

 5. Penny (1¢)

Look, pennies!

Can the United States just give up on the penny and get rid of it like other countries have? It has practically no value and for quite a number of years it has cost more to make the penny than it is worth (the last stat I was able to find was from 2014, when it cost the U.S. Mint 1.67¢ to produce a penny). Canada got rid of these things and just rounds all the prices to the nearest nickel. Is the fact that the color is different than all the other coins cool? Yeah, it sure is. Is Abe Lincoln cool? Yeah, he sure is. But Honest Abe deserves to be bumped up to a coin with more value. You can't buy anything for a penny anymore.

• What is it made of?  97.5% zinc, 2.5% copper
  
• Who is on the front? Abraham Lincoln
• Who should be on the front? Nobody, because this coin should be taken out of circulation.
• What is on the back? Since 2010, it has been the "Union Shield," which is just boring and awful. In 2009 there were a few different backs for one year only, but they were also dumb.
• What should be on the back? Bringing back the Lincoln Memorial or even the old "Wheat Cent" would be better than the shield. But I say neither because, as above, let's just get rid of this coin.

4. Nickel (5¢)

CREEPER.

Nickels annoy the hell out of me for the EXACT same reason they annoy the hell out of you and everyone else - they are at an initial glance ALMOST IDENTICAL TO THE QUARTER. The Nickel is 0.835 inches in diameter, while the Quarter is 0.955 inches -- a mere 0.12 inches difference. A TENTH OF AN INCH! The Quarter is worth five times as much as the Nickel, so it's obviously superior. Chances are you, like me, thought you were going to a vending machine or paying a cashier with the right amount, only to foolishly realize that one of the things you thought was a Quarter was actually just a Nickel and now you're twenty cents short. Also aggravating about the nickel is that it is smaller than the Dime. Can the Nickel and Dime swap sizes, please?  Regardless of if the two flip sizes or not, whichever one is closer in size to the Quarter should have is color changed so that no longer looks nearly the same as a quarter. Since I have proposed getting rid of the Penny, now one of these other coins can get the copper-plating. A Nickel is really already %75 copper anyway, just with Nickel on top. Would it be weird if the Nickel wasn't the color of nickel? Sure, I guess.  Which is why if we size swapped it with the Dime, the Nickel could stay small and nickel-colored, while the Dime gets larger and gets the copper look. This all makes perfect sense to me.

• What is it made of? 75% copper, 25% nickel
• Who is on the front? Thomas Jefferson, eerily staring at you since 2006 like you're Sally Hemings and he's planning to rape you.
• Who should be on the front?  HOLY CRAP! Why did they redesign this coin from a profile face to him looking directly at you?! Anything is better than this. Just bring him back to his old profile face with his fucking pony tail. Or better yet, replace him with literally any other President of the United States who didn't rape slaves. Maybe move Lincoln here if we've gotten rid of the Penny. Or let's just go back to the old Buffalo Nickel with the American Indian on the front.
• What is on the back? Monticello, AKA the Slave Rape Bunker.
• What should be on the back? Okay, now I'm all in on the Buffalo Nickel idea. Let's throw a bison on the back and call it a day.

3. Dime (10¢)

Generic old white man.

My frustrations with the Dime were already articulated when discussing the Nickel above, but just to further complain about this coin - why the hell was it ever so teeny, tiny in the first place?!  It's almost the exact same size in diameter as the Penny, but it's even thinner (it's the thinnest coin in U.S. currency), weighing in at a minuscule 2.268 grams. Historically, the Dime used to actually contain silver, hence it was still more valuable despite the less weight. But that silver has been gone since the Lyndon Johnson administration, so it's time we rethink this bad boy. As stated above - eliminate the Penny, swap the size of the Nickel and Dime so that the Dime is now Nickel-sized, and then change the color of the Dime so that it is now copper on the outside and does not easily get confused with the Quarter.

• What is it made of?  91.67% copper, 8.33% nickel.
• Who is on the front? FDR
• Who should be on the front? Look, FDR was pretty memorable for his time with WWII and being President for an unprecedented (and never repeated) four terms. But is face is pretty boring and un-memorable on this coin. If there is a U.S. coin that most people can't tell you who the President on it is, it's gotta be this one. So maybe badass Teddy Roosevelt instead. That mustache is top notch!
• What is on the back? An olive branch, a torch, and an oak branch. All of which are LAME.
• What should be on the back?  If Teddy goes on the front, then maybe the back should be the Devil's Tower in Wyoming, as it was the first National Park ever established (by TR).

2. Dollar Coin ($1)

Hey look, a baby!

I suppose I should dislike the Dollar Coin for the same reason that I rank the Half Dollar in last place - nobody uses it. Damnit though, that's not right! We should totally be using these things. Nearly every other country uses a coin for their dollar or equivalent currency. What we need to do is get rid of the stupid paper dollar and start forcing people to use these coins. How much is wasted on printing out those dollar bills which will only remain in circulation for a few years before getting ripped and worn down... versus a coin that can last for decades and decades. I love the idea of using Dollar Coins, and love the idea that I can pay for significant things like a meal with "change." But I think the last time I ever saw one was as change from a toll booth (which makes sense). Basically as long as the government is still printing paper dollars, these are never going to be a thing. Alas, as with the Half Dollar, the U.S. Mint doesn't really produce dollar coins for general circulation any more, and the ones circulating out there are all from 2011 or before. My only major problem with Dollar Coins in recent history has just been the Mint's totally insane inability to pick a thing which goes on it and stick with it.

• What is it made of?  88.5% copper, 6% zinc, 3.5% manganese, 2% nickel.
• Who is on the front? Since 2000, Susan B. Anthony has mostly been replaced with Sacagawea. However, from 2007 to 2016 there was a "Presidential Dollar Coin" series, where various U.S. Presidents were placed on the Dollar Coin, including Presidents who were already on different coins. For the first several years, these coins appeared in general circulation. But by the time they got to the 20th President, James Garfield, they abandoned the whole thing and only made collector coins for the remaining dead Presidents. They also had a First Ladies Dollar Coin set as well. In 2018, they also announced a new and stupid "American Innovation Dollar Coins" collection, which will again be limited to collectors-only and not put in general circulation.
• Who should be on the front?  Sacagawea and ONLY Sacagawea. Stop having the same coin with different people on the front. That's annoying. What is this... the Eurozone or something? Changing what's on the back is fine. But keep the front the same.
• What is on the back? Mostly, it's a flying bald eagle. The overwhelming majority of Sacagawea coins were produced in the first four years, which featured that on it. Chances are, if you've ever had a Sacagawea Dollar, you figured the eagle was the only thing on the back. Nope. Beginning in 2009, they started to change the design on the back every year to a different scene representing Native American culture or history. But as I said, in 2011 the U.S. basically gave up on the whole Dollar Coin thing, so only three years of circulated coins, produced in much smaller quantities, had other backs.  They've continued to produce additional collector's only coins with the different backs since 2012. 
• What should be on the back? I'm okay with the concept of the back of the coin changing to a different thing every year, although since no new circulating coins are even being made it's a bit of a moot point. 

1. Quarter (25¢)

Pick one concept and stick with it, Florida. Jesus!

The Quarter is the best. It's a nice size - not too small, not too big, a perfectly fine weight, and its value is decent. 25¢ isn't a ton of money, but if you have a big bag full of these at a coinstar machine, you're going to have a mad amount of bills come out in return. As opposed to going to the machine with a big bag of pennies and winding up saying, "Oh, is that all?" Anyway, the Quarter is the American coin. That's why we put the first President on it and why we've dedicated so much time over the last twenty years to putting an endless cycle of stupid different things on the back. 

• What is it made of? 91.67% copper, 8.33% nickel
  
• Who is on the front? George Washington.
• Who should be on the front?  I suppose there is an argument to removing all the slave-owning Presidents from coins, but at least Washington didn't rape his slaves like Jefferson did (that we know of or can prove). Still though, he's the first President. Are we going to rename the city? The state? None of that is ever going to happen. Let's just keep this as-is unless the removal of the Penny (as I proposed) means that Lincoln needs somewhere to go (if we go with a Buffalo Nickel instead of putting Lincoln on that).
• What is on the back? Ugh. What a shit show. Initially it was an Eagle. Then in 1999 they started doing the "50 States Quarters" thing. At first I thought it was cool - for 10 straight years five "new" Quarters would be released every year with different backs, representing each state. I collected them. You collected them. Everyone collected them because it was nifty. Or at least you and I and everyone collected them for a few years before we all said, "fuck it," and then broke our collections open to go get a Dr. Pepper.  By the time we got through the 50 states, the U.S. Mint decided to add on DC and U.S. territories. Fair enough, makes sense. Then after that they added on the "America the Beautiful" coins featuring parks. Okaaaaay. Sure. That will end in 2021 and I'm sure they'll pick some new silly rotation to go with.
• What should be on the back?  After 20 years of rotating different things on the back... can we just have the eagle back for a few years with nothing else? The "oh look, a new thing on the back!" isn't that interesting or special if it happens all the time. Let the damn eagle get five years or something.