Word has come out that a new rule(?) makes it illegal to melt pennies and nickels in order to sell their base metals.
I have several questions about this:
1) Don't I own my money? If so, I should be able to do anything I want to it, including melt it. If not, then I guess it's true, we really don't own our money, the government just lets us use it.
2) This is being described as a "rule", not a "law". Who made this rule? Why isn't it a law? And if some federal bureaucrat really does have the power to tell us what we may or may not do with our money, maybe it really is time to have a second revolution.
More on this later, I have to go to work.
3 comments:
I understood that it is illegal to deface U.S. currency. So melting a penny would be illegal. I've understood this for years so it isn't new.
Defacement of currency is a violation of Title 18, Section 333 of the United States Code. Under this provision, currency defacement is generally defined as follows: Whoever mutilates, cuts, disfigures, perforates, unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, Federal Reserve Bank, or Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such item(s) unfit to be reissued, shall be fined not more than $100 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
Defacement of currency in such a way that it is made unfit for circulation comes under the jurisdiction of the United States Secret Service. Their mailing address is:
United States Secret Service
950 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20223.
FYI
so.... all the penny smashing machines at disneyland, seaworld, etc, etc have slipped by the secret service all these years!!!!
Or can you still spend pennies that have shamu on them now?
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