For all you fine folks out there who play by the rules and are waiting for your bailout, here it is. The U.S. Mint has been trying for years to promote the usage of dollar coins, and you can profit from their latest program to get more of these coins into circulation. Here is the write-up from the Mint’s website:
To encourage robust national circulation of $1 Coins (non-numismatic, circulation-grade coins), the United States Mint has introduced the Circulating $1 Coin Direct Ship Program. This program makes it easy for retailers, financial institutions, and other interested parties to obtain smaller quantities of $1 coins than can otherwise be obtained from the Federal Reserve.
The $1 coins, wrapped in rolls of 25, are available in quantities of $250 per box. Maximum order quantity is 20 boxes or 5,000 coins.
For this special program:
- The United States Mint pays for standard shipping and handling of domestic orders. Any special handling will be paid by the customer.
- Orders are limited to twenty boxes ($5000) per coin issue.
- Specific coins are available only while supplies last.
- Please allow approximately 1-2 weeks for shipping.
- All sales are final.
Now you may be asking why any true American cares about this. After all, dollar coins are for Europeans and Canadians (my theory is that they don’t call the Canadian dollar coin a “loonie” just because of the bird on it). Well, you can order these coins using a credit card at face value, and they will even pay the shipping. That means free credit card rewards for doing nothing but ordering a bunch of goofy coins, depositing said coins at your bank, and paying off the credit card bill when it comes in with the deposited funds from the coins.
The coins are available for purchase directly from the Mint here. You can follow the discussion on SlickDeals here.
If you have a standard 1% cash back card, a maximum order of 5,000 coins is good for $50 in rewards. If you have the Citi AMEX Platinum card like I do that offers 3 Thank You points per dollar, you’ve earned 15,000 points worth anywhere from $0.008 to $0.01 per point (depending on redeemed reward), or $120 to $150.
That is brilliant! I never would have thought of that. I try to use my cash-back credit card for everything I can, but that’s something that never occured to me!