A Bill

to provide the integrity of US Mint coins which are explicitly not legal tender, for barter transactions, an encouragement to a form of saving, and for educational, promotional, and other purposes,

be it enacted...

TITLE

This Act may be referenced as the Elementree Barter Coin Act

PURPOSE

This Act creates a series of US Mint coins or medallions with assay and weight controls and informational, identification, and decorative impressions typical of legal tender coins, but with no facial or implied monetary denomination, and to thus explicitly not be legal tender, to provide the integrity of US Mint coins for barter, which may be significant in some current or future tax environments. Other purposes may include collector use, educational , savings, and other purposes.

IMPLEMENTATION

The US Mint is hereby mandated and funded for $50,000,000 to develop a series of coins or medallions of consistant diameter, to be known as Elementree Barter Coins, hereinafter refered to as EBCs. EBCs shall be a series of elemental metal coins, with each element species in the series affiliated with a species of tree or other large plant indiginous to the United States or its possessions, and the series shall include a standard coin or medallion of at least the following metals: iron, aluminum, tin, lead, zinc, copper, nickel, bismuth, silver, silicon, antimony, platinum, and gold.

The Mint shall endeavor to create a species of EBC for as many elements mined in the USA as practical, within the limits of coining technology, and public safety issues such as toxicity of elemental materials. The Mint shall investigate transparent coatings of coins of elements that coin easily in their elemental form, but also oxidize easily or violently, such as iron, sodium, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, and so on.

The obverse, or face, of an EBC of a particular element shall bear a depiction of a tree or large plant indigenous to the USA or its possessions, in the style of a field guide identification illustration, but in relief as typical for coins, and shall bear no text. Each tree species shall be specific to a particular metallic element.

The reverse of an EBC shall bear the phrase "U.S. Mint", a coining year, the element making up the bulk of the coin, that element's atomic number, the prevalent American name of the tree on the obverse, and that tree's scientific genus-species name. There shall also be a metal purity percentage, and a weight of the coin, which may be a series minimum weight, or in the case of very valuable elements, an individually stamped as-coined weight of maximal practical precision. There may also be two-letter abbreviations for the States for which the tree in question is the State tree.

EBCs are not legal tender, but are U.S. coin, so imitating them to the point of deception shall be prosecuted as counterfeiting.

The Mint shall price EBCs in accordance with market conditions to make a profit in the 10% range, including continuing costs, but not covering the initial funding, and shall endeavor to supply what ever level of demand arises, and shall endeavor to keep each element species of EBC available as continuously as is practical.

EBCs shall be of consistent diameter, but various commodity metals vary in weight by a wide range, and the Mint is tasked with determining the convenience of varying standard weights of EBCs by metal, or into ranges of consistent weights, or varying the thicknesses by metal.