The Ron Paul dollar in copper, silver, and gold. From The Liberty Dollar.I saw this story yesterday, and I just had to shake my head at it. From The Washington Post:
The ardent supporters of Rep. Ron Paul, the iconoclastic Texas libertarian whose campaign for the presidency is threatening to upend the battle for the Republican nomination, got word yesterday of a new source of outrage and motivation: reports of a federal raid on a company that was selling thousands of coins marked with the craggy visage of their hero.
Federal agents on Thursday raided the Evansville, Ind., headquarters of the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act and Internal Revenue Code (Norfed), an organization of "sound money" advocates that for the past decade has been selling a private currency it calls "Liberty Dollars." The company says it has put into circulation more than $20 million in Liberty Dollars, coins and paper certificates it contends are backed by silver and gold stored in Idaho, are far more reliable than a U.S. dollar and are accepted for use by a nationwide underground economy.
Norfed officials said yesterday that the six-hour raid occurred just as its six employees were mailing out the first batch of 60,000 "Ron Paul Dollars," copper coins sold for $1 to honor the candidate, who is a longtime advocate of abolishing the Federal Reserve. The group says it has shipped out about 10,000 silver Ron Paul Dollars that sold for $20 and about 3,500 of the copper $1 coins. But it said the agents seized more than 50,000 of the copper coins -- more than two tons' worth -- plus smaller amounts of the silver coins and gold and platinum Ron Paul Dollars, which sell for $1,000 and $2,000.
"They took everything, all of the computers, everything but the desks and chairs," the company's founder and head, Bernard von NotHaus, said in a telephone interview from his home in Miami. "The federal government really is afraid." Von NotHaus changed the name of Norfed to Liberty Services earlier this year, but affidavits for government search warrants served yesterday continued to use the older name.
[....]
Von NotHaus said agents also raided Sunshine Minting in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, a company that makes the organization's coins. He said agents seized huge pallets of silver and gold, worth more than $1 million, that the organization says back the Liberty Dollars. Sunshine Minting did not return calls seeking comment.
I went to the Liberty Dollar website here, and they offer both coins and certificates. The coins are copper, silver or gold coins, the certificates' values are backed by gold or silver. Now this guy Von NotHaus may want the U.S. to go back to either a gold standard, or bimetallism standard. But what Von NotHaus may not realize is that Americans who are worried about the dropping value of the U.S. dollar, can purchase gold or silver coins from a variety of vendors. You can even purchase gold and silver coins from the U.S. Mint. What Von NotHaus was trying to do was to create his own private currency that could be used in the public transaction of goods and services. The FBI said no-no-no, and busted his Liberty Dollar headquarters.
One more interesting note. Since the Feds have confiscated all of Liberty Dollar's Ron Paul dollar coins, and all of Liberty Dollar's gold, silver, and copper, the Ron Paul dollars have shot up in price on eBay. The Ron Paul silver dollars are selling for around $200 to $400 a piece, while the Ron Paul gold dollars are selling for $1,200 a piece.
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