I've seen both hand cranked and electric, so no.  If I recall correctly, all of those machine at WDW were electric.

That clearly refers to paper notes.

I've seen some of these penny presses that have a sticker explaining (in small print) how and why the machine is legal.

I've also seen penny presses outside of the US that use US pennies, because it is prohibited to reshape the local currency.

Well no that statute refers to both coins and notes however the point was that FRADULENT INTENT is required.

More info including letter from Treasury with explanation:
http://www.parkpennies.com/pressed-penny/penny-pressing-legal.htm

It's a near certainty that all three methods are currently employed, but there are limits to how much influence these methods can impose.

Correct.  The way that stable value is assigned to a commodity, whether gold or silver or anything else, is by keeping it in circulation.  The way to keep a commodity in circulation is by gaining ownership of it and taking reasonable measures to prevent it from being taken out of circulation.  And the method provided by the Constitution to keep a commodity in circulation as a stable measure of value, is by "coining" it.  This is the same method which has been used since Roman times.

Now, to nitpick, the commodity in question doesn't have to be gold or silver.  But, as you point out, only gold or silver can be forced upon the States or anyone else as legal tender.  So there is an obvious advantage to coining gold and silver.

You're right, though, that FDR was a bad example.  He violated the law in dozens of unconstitutional ways.  But that's beside the point, and doesn't change the fact that, according to the US Treasury, they (not you) own and control all coins in circulation and can make rules (even without Congress) preventing you from melting them down, for instance.

That's what the justices would like you to think.

No shit, but have you been keeping up to date with all the goings-on in the courts? Justices way overstepping their bounds and basically inventing laws on the spot. 

Gold and silver are not automatically legal tender.  That is up to each State.  The Constitution just limits the options for possible legal tender to only gold and/or silver:



Obviously maintaining a stable value also requires a few other details, such as choosing a non-self-replicating commodity as medium of exchange.  But the value of Federal Reserve Notes has nothing to do with the commodity value of paper, and was never intended to.  This is a non sequitur.  If a paper dollar had been set at a more realistic (commodity) value, such as 1/5000 of a block of firewood instead of 1/35 of an ounce of gold, its value would have been extremely stable over the last 100 years.  But, again, this was not its purpose.  It is not commodity currency.  So it is irrelevant.


And finally we get to the crux of the matter.  I anticipated that you would disagree with my post because of this.  You have even spelled out the crucial point, without even recognizing it -- namely that the "value" of a medium of exchange only has meaning in relation to something else.  Your example is fine, though I must point out that it failed.  Beyond this failed attempt to maintain the value of the dollar in terms of silver, it should be obvious that it is even more difficult to maintain the "value" of an arbitrary medium of exchange in relation to all commodities simultaneously, though that is what the Federal Reserve is attempting to do, poorly.

But you miss the point that denomination is precisely the flaw of fiat currency.  The inherent value of a 10 dollar bill is no different from that of a 1 dollar bill.  And neither has any relation to the value of an ounce of silver.  The Federal Reserve has no authority to dictate the value of their little scraps of paper to anyone.  They have only diluted the value of their notes by endless printing, destroying our political system with bought-off politicians, and purchase of guns and steel in order to attempt to gain this authority.  Persistent value, though probably impossible in the long run, at the very least requires the rejection of the concept of denomination, instead relying on the inherent value of the commodity itself, without manipulation.

There's no need for experts.  If the architects of the Constitution had intended the Federal government to have a monopoly on legal tender, they would have written exactly that, instead of what they did write which was to leave the decision up to the States, within certain limits.


So, since Federal Reserve Notes are not paper, nor even a commodity, then what exactly is your argument?  The value of toilet paper is fairly stable.

You're right, probably not significant value, but I only claimed stable value.

I thought we established that only gold and silver can be legal tender?

Uh, you did?  And you got it from Jefferson and Hamilton and the Coinage act of 1792:
And it lasted until the 1960's...

Nixon.

Sounds like denomination to me.

Fair enough. Then I'll imagine for now it's only States that can't coin gold and silver. Private individuals and Congress can.


Federal Reserve Notes are not paper?  

And you think paper can't be a commodity? Let's say the U.S. experiences massive hyperinflation resulting in total loss of confidence in the dollar, or more accurately Federal Reserve Notes. The many newly poor and homeless on the streets might be glad for paper to burn for warmth. You're saying a vendor wheeling stacks of FRNs down the streets in a wheelbarrow (perhaps along with matches) selling for gold rings, bracelets, etc., and the people lining up to buy a source of warmth for the night wouldn't be purchasing a paper commodity? Which universe exactly are you in?


Nice try.

The value wouldn't be stable either. If there was any value you can bet those with the ability to create more dollars (the govt.) would do so since they would not be restrained by the ability to honor the backing. This would mean inflation and loss of value, even if the value was small to begin with. You either have zero value, or some value. I've shown why your statement is false, unless you meant a stable value of zero?


Do me a favor and get a paper dollar from somewhere. Look for the words "legal tender" on it and let me know if you don't find them. We established the Constitution says only gold and silver can be legal tender.


I said the value of the U.S. dollar was based on a certain amount of silver. I did NOT say there was an attempt to maintain that value. Your problem appears to be failure to account for fine distinction. The Constitution gives Congress the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof. If Congress instructs the U.S. Mint to create 1 dollar coins consisting of 1 ounce of silver then Congress is legally exercising its Constitutional authority. This says nothing of any "attempt" to maintain the value for a dollar. The legal instruction to the Mint is not an "attempt", it's an instruction.

Now if people in the marketplace want to price their goods in dollars and accept those 1 ounce silver coins Congress had minted that's their business. People are NOT forced to use those coins if they feel they don't provide enough value. People are ONLY required to accept them for settlement of debt owed them if they are declared legal tender.

So I hope you can see, as I said above, it's only people that can ultimately decide the value of something. Foreign coins consisting of 2 ounces of silver might be the preferred choice of the marketplace to use as dollars, for example. And in this case Congress still hasn't failed at any attempt. They can go on defining 1 dollar as 1 ounce of silver. Some in the marketplace will recognize that value simply because it's the legal national currency.

But as I've pointed out the people and the marketplace have never rejected that definition of a dollar. Indeed, people WISH they could get as much silver per dollar as the original definition stipulates. So where is the failure?

Indeed, what we are missing IS an attempt to maintain the value of a dollar in terms of silver. IF this WAS the attempt we would never have stopped paying out silver/gold.

We may have had failure in political decisions in history, yes, but we haven't had failure for trying to define the ratio of silver to 1 dollar.


I'm sorry what it sounds like to you. Let me tell you what each is.

Fiat is a decree. So fiat money is money that becomes so by decree. This means if the government wants to declare that sticks are money, then sticks will then be money by decree. The problem, which should be obvious, is that simply declaring that something (like sticks) has a certain value, or any value at all, is inherently flawed. Why? Because the assigned value has to be accepted by people who have free will and probably other ideas about what is valuable to them.

Denomination is a value or size (as of money), or the act of denominating.