U.S. Mint plays favorites, which for some reason includes loving Franklin Pierce

The big news in Coinland this week: Dollar coins no longer can be exploited for frequent flier miles. Until now, the U.S. Mint, desperate to pump these things into circulation, had been letting people buy them in $250 bundles. Shipping was free. That meant you could buy $250 for $250, put it on your credit card, and enjoy the air miles. This was a loophole reported as far back as 2009. Now it's closed. You can't pay by credit card anymore.

But this wasn't the biggest problem with this program. As far as we're concerned, here's the shocker:

That's the entire offering. Nevermind that they're all sold out. Coins with the faces of 18 presidents have been released so far, but there are only four presidents available through the Mint, and boring ol' Sacagawea! What if someone wants 250 James K. Polks? There are a lot of Polkamaniacs out there.

We noticed this last week, back when everything but James Madison was sold out, and wrote the Mint a letter. It hasn't responded. And so, we must resort to the public shaming of making this an open letter. Prepare for the wrath of the people, Mint. Here we go:

Dear U.S. Mint,

I am interested in your $250 direct ship program. Ideally I'd like to order a mix of presidents, but if that is not possible, I'd settle for Millard Fillmore. (The country did just that, right? Kidding.)

According to your website, though, there are only four presidents and Sacajawea available—but all the presidents except for James Madison are sold out. Is this really accurate?

It is my understanding that at least presidents 1 through 18 have been minted. Is it possible to get anyone besides Washington, Adams, Madison, and Pierce? (Also: Pierce?)

Thanks so much,
Jen and Jason

Work with us, Mint. We'll pay by check.

Waitress: "I'm going to need a bigger apron"

We paid for brunch at Building on Bond with dollar coins, and when the waitress came by, she said, "Oh my God." So we sat her down to talk about what life would be like if everyone paid the way we did.

Jason apologizes for the out-of-focus video. He didn't know how to focus on the iPhone. (He does now.)

What about $100 in dollar coins sounds like in your pocket

Answer: It sounds like Scrooge McDuck swimming.

Considering there's $1 billion unused coins out there, getting them is harder than you'd think

This all started with NPR. Of course.

On June 28, 2011, the Planet Money team ran a story called $1 Billion That Nobody Wants, revealing that there is a billion dollars in unused dollar coins just sitting around in Fed vaults. And because their production is mandated by law, the government has to keep cranking the coins out until 2016.

The story included the photo above, from the Fed branch in Baltimore. Whoa, right? Just look at those things.

A relative of Jen's gave us each one of these coins as a novelty gift, and that's pretty much how we'd experienced them since their production in 2007: not as real money, but rather as a weird token that everyone tentatively agreed to treat like real money. It was like spending Canadian money in America: you slip one coin in among a pile of legal tender, and hope the cashier doesn't notice.

So when we read the NPR story, we thought: Well, what would happen if we started using these things like real money? And so we set a goal: We'd acquire one of the giant Fed bags of coins photographed in the NPR story, and make all our purchases with them unti we ran out.

But getting the coins wasn't easy.

We emailed the Fed, expecting them to happily oblige. Instead, perhaps desperate for some web traffic, they replied with a link to this page of their site. It explained:

To obtain a specific note or coin, we recommend you contact the institution you bank with to see if it will honor your request. Federal Reserve Banks provide currency only to depository institutions, which then distribute it to members of the public.

Ok, cool. That's easy, we thought. We contacted Bank of America, where Jason has an account. They wrote back:

The article features loose bagged dollar coins on Federal Reserve Bank shelves, not consumer bank shelves. Our banking centers may have dollar coins available in smaller amounts or in $25 rolls (if not, they can be ordered), but not in bags.

So, we had to revise our plan: Instead of a bag, we'd just get $500 in coins and put them in our own damn bag. And so, we embarked upon a banking adventure.

Bank of America. On Saturday, July 16, we marched down to the Bank of America in Brooklyn Heights, where we live. It was closed. Honestly, BoA: The rest of America does things on Saturday. Join us.

Next: TD BankNorth. The place looked like a hotel lobby—"the bank for kings," Jen declared breathlessly, because clearly she hasn't walked into many banks. But because we don't have accounts there, they couldn't go into their vault and get coins for us.

You don't have coins outside the vault? we asked.

"That wouldn't be useful," the teller told us.

Oh.

Next: Sovereign. They only exchange $40 for non-account-holders. We said, "Then we'd like $40 in dollar coins." Turns out they didn't even have that; they only had $26. We took it. Finally: coins!

Next: Chase Bank. They had $78 in coins. We high-fived and took them.

We'd buy more coins eventually, but all this work made us hungry. Next up: Brunch.