Nickels

OK, I’ll admit it: I collect coins. I know. I’m finally out of the closet. My dweebiness is confirmed. I’m a numismaticist. Or however it’s spelled. I collect world coins, mostly. Mine’s an odd obsession. I want to collect the most worthless coins from every country in the world. And I’m darned near there.

So here’s the point. I don’t specifically collect American coins because, quite frankly, they’re boring. I mean, look at the old quarters. Many of the new state quarters are cool, but after 2008 we’ll probably go back to the old ones. OK, maybe that wasn’t a great example. Well, how about the pennies. The dimes. Even the half dollars and the full dollars. How boring can you get?

And then there’s the nickel. During the Lewis and Clark celebration, we got to see four different designs on the back of the nickel. Some were rather lame, but you gotta love the buffalo. That’s gotta be the coolest coin that the treasury has put out…well, since we had buffalo head nickels, when ever that was. (Yeah, I know, a good numistaticist would know that. Let it go.)

But then, what do we do? We go back to Monticello. Monticello! How lame! It’s bad enough we get that stupid front view of Jefferson. But Monticello! Of all the things that we have to put up with in the United States, and now we have to put up with a lame nickel. I’m going to Canada. They’ve got loons on their coins. I ought to fit right in.