Coins

So you got yourself one of those widely advertised Obama coins from Franklin Mint that's covered in 24-carat gold and depicts the president-elect. With it came a "certificate of authenticity," signed by the 36th director of the U.S. Mint, Jay W. Johnson. The good news: The coin, priced at $9.95, has guaranteed monetary value. The bad: That guaranteed value is only 50 cents. Also, although Johnson is a real person, he hasn't been director of the U.S. Mint since 2001.

Can the coins jingling in your pocket trace your movements? The Defense Department is warning its American contractor employees about a new espionage threat seemingly straight from Hollywood: It discovered Canadian coins with tiny radio-frequency transmitters inside. In a U.S. government report, it said the coins were found planted on U.S.

Reversing itself, the Defense Department says its espionage report that warned about Canadian coins with tiny radio frequency transmitters was not true. The Defense Security Service said it never could substantiate its own published claims about the mysterious coins. It has begun an internal review to determine how the false information was included in a 29-page report about espionage concerns. The service had contended since late June that such coins were found planted on U.S.

Cleopatra was a sharp-nosed, thin-lipped woman with a protruding chin, and her paramour, Mark Antony, no great looker, according to University of Newcastle scholars, who have unveiled a coin depicting both unflattering profiles. "The image on the coin is far from being that of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton," said Lindsay Allason-Jones, director of archeology museums at the university, recalling the 1963 film "Cleopatra," which ignited the tempestuous romance between the two actors.

OK, so Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea didn't get the job done. Now the U.S. Mint is rolling out the big guns: George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. But even the founding fathers may not be able to handle this challenge. In 1979, unhappy over the speed with which $1 bills wore out and the cost of replacing them, the Treasury Department issued a dollar coin featuring Anthony, the women's rights crusader. But the public wasn't buying -- or, rather, using.

Mary and Ray Smith can't make heads or tails of a new presidential dollar coin they found. It doesn't have either. A week after the revelation that some coins slipped out of the U.S. Mint without "In God We Trust" stamped on the edge, the Smiths said in Fort Collins that they found one with nothing stamped on either side. It does have "In God We Trust" on the edge. What's missing is the image of George Washington on the front and the Statue of Liberty on the back.

The state quarter will feature a picture of King Kamehameha the Great overlooking a relief map of the main Hawaiian islands with the state's Hawaiian-language motto written on the coin. Gov. Linda Lingle announced the design for the quarter in Honolulu. It is to be minted in fall 2008 as the last commemorative state quarter to be released.

Most folks can correctly name George Washington as the nation's first president. After that, things get tricky. The U.S. Mint is hoping its new dollar coin series will help refresh some hazy memories about the names of Adams, Jefferson and the rest. That could be a tall order, however, given the results of a poll the Mint commissioned. According to the survey conducted by Gallup Organization, nearly all those questioned knew that Washington was the first president.

Piles of old coins worth as much as $200,000 were found in a long-abandoned Windber home, including scores that the owner had apparently thrown down a hole in the wall. Jeff Bidelman, owner of Rare Collectibles near Johnstown, said he was helping the family clean out the house after the deaths of the owners, who had not lived there for two decades. He was dragging a bag of old coins down the steps when he noticed a hole in an upstairs wall.