rather, superior to it.9
The Liberty Dollar was backed up by a persuasive marketing pitch. To quote from one of its brochures:
Now you have a clear choice of money. Are you ready to grow and protect your money or will you continue to lose your purchasing power as the US dollar depreciates?
Just as FedEx brought choice to the US Post Office, the Liberty Dollar brings choice to the US dollar and protection for your purchasing power.
The Liberty Dollar is 100% inflation proof. It is real gold and silver that you can use just like cash where it is accepted voluntarily for everyday purchases at your grocery store, dentist or gas station…
When you are paying, ask the cashier, ‘Would you like plastic, paper or Silver?’ Then reach out and drop the Liberty Dollar in the cashier’s hand. Join the fun by simply offering the Liberty Dollar for all your goods and services.
The Liberty Dollar was highly successful and became the second most popular currency in the US. From 1998 to 2007, Liberty Dollar issues totalled up to perhaps $85m in value. Over this same period, the company issued over 350 different specimens in paper or gold, silver, platinum or copper specie that were distributed to around 250,000 customers. The Liberty Dollar was also accepted as a means of exchange. Indeed, while von NotHaus encouraged supporters to use the Liberty Dollar at ‘mom and pop’ merchants, one supporter produced a list of all the major brand names that had accepted it. The company that accepted it most was Walmart, where it was used in hundreds of their stores.10
Since the Liberty Dollar was periodically rebased to keep its value in line with the precious metals, its value rose substantially over time against the depreciating dollar. For example, as already noted, a silver Liberty medallion with a face value of $10 minted in 1998 contained one ounce of 0.999 fine silver worth approximately $5 at the time of minting and sold then for $10. However, with silver valued at about $20 per ounce, this same medallion would have an intrinsic bullion value of about $20 and would typically trade for considerably more than this on eBay. Someone who bought such a medallion in 1998 would have had an investment that more than kept up with inflation, whereas someone who held onto a $10 banknote would have seen their investment lose about half its value over the period since 1998. Moreover, investors who bought gold Liberty Dollars rather than silver ones would have benefited considerably more.
The criticism could be made that, as a store of value, the Liberty Dollar was inferior to holding, say, pure silver as the latter would not have involved the minter’s profit that led the Liberty Dollar to generally have a higher face value than its silver value. At the same time, it could be argued that, because the Liberty Dollar was not generally accepted, it was less useful than the Federal Reserve dollar as a means of exchange. In addition, because of the rebasing of the Liberty Dollars, prices would not be stable when expressed in the dollar unit of account. In response to these criticisms it should be noted that over the long run the Liberty Dollar would retain its value if the value of the dollar fell against precious metals because the Liberty Dollar would be revalued. At the same time, it had the potential to become generally acceptable and therefore be more useful than silver jewellery, trinkets, etc., as a medium of exchange. Indeed, as is noted above, it did become widely used in exchange even if it was not generally accepted.
9 The Liberty Dollar company went to great lengths to distinguish itself from official US coinage. As we have seen, they scrupulously avoided using the term ‘coin’, but they also avoided the term ‘legal tender’: to quote one of their statements, ‘[t]he Liberty Dollar has never claimed to be, does not claim to be, is not, and does not purport to be, legal tender.’ Instead, the company saw the Liberty Dollar as a form of barter – their preferred wording was ‘private voluntary barter currency’ – which people could use for exchange if they wished to.
10 Von NotHaus (2003) has a chapter devoted to the use of the Liberty Dollar as currency.
The Liberty Dollar and the law in the land of liberty
The attitude of the government towards the Liberty Dollar was initially one of tolerance. However, the attitude then hardened. In 2006 the US Mint issued a press release stating that use of the Liberty Dollar was a federal crime.11 In March 2007, von NotHaus filed a lawsuit against the Mint seeking a declaratory judgement that this allegation was untrue. The government responded with a raid by the FBI and the Secret Service on the Liberty Dollar offices in Evanston, Indiana, on 14 November 2007 in which they seized virtually everything they could, including gold and silver medallions, paper certificates, computers and even the furniture. The warehouse in Idaho where the gold and silver were kept for the Liberty Dollar paper and digital receipts was also raided. Approximately nine tons of gold and silver were seized, even though this was not even the property of the Liberty Dollar company, but that of its clients. This seizure made it impossible for the company to redeem the certificates.
A federal indictment was then brought against von NotHaus and three others in the United States District Court in Statesville, NC, in May 2009, and von NotHaus was arrested on 4 June. He was charged with counterfeiting,12 fraud and conspiracy against the United States.
The first charge can only be described as risible, for two reasons: firstly, counterfeiting requires some attempt to make the ‘fake’ currency look like the ‘real’ one, and yet the Liberty Dollar currency was quite different in appearance from official currency. The medallions themselves were easily distinguishable, even if they shared some similarities such as the dollar sign ‘$’, the words ‘dollar’ and ‘Liberty’ and the year of minting. They differed in obvious ways: they included ‘USA’ (instead of ‘United States of America’) and ‘Trust in God’ (instead of ‘In God We Trust’); they did not feature the Statue of Liberty or the phrase ‘legal tender’; they also had other features not found on US coinage such as an image of Ron Paul, a toll free phone number and even a URL. They also differed from official US coinage in being made from precious metals instead of base metals. If these were ever meant to be counterfeit, they were certainly poor ones – and unnecessarily expensive to produce, being made of precious metal. The Liberty Dollar certificates were also very different from greenbacks. In fact, none were even green. They had the words ‘Negotiable American Liberty Currency Silver [or where appropriate, Gold] Certificate’ boldly emblazoned on one side and ‘Warehouse Receipt’ on the other, and so could hardly be mistaken for US currency. They also bear von NotHaus’s own signature, whereas it is traditional for counterfeiters to keep their handiwork anonymous. They were even a different shape and size from greenbacks.
The second reason why the charge was risible is that any charge of counterfeiting implies fraud and intent to deceive, and yet there was never any evidence of any intent of fraud or misrepresentation.
If the Liberty Dollar is sufficiently similar to official currency to constitute a federal offence, then the government should pursue anyone who issues anything that could be construed as similar to the official currency. After all, there are many other private organisations that issue alternative dollar currencies even within the US. These include: issuers of travellers’ cheques, such as American Express; Parker Brothers, who make the board game ‘Monopoly’; and Disney Corporation, whose Disney Dollars are obvious counterfeits signed off by Scrooge McDuck.
Von NotHaus’s defence was that he did not steal, defraud, misrepresent or force anyone to hold Liberty Dollars or do anything else illegal, and that his customers were satisfied, not least because the value of the Liberty Dollar had risen considerably over time while that of the US dollar depreciated.
This defence was, however, rejected and von NotHaus was convicted on 18 March 2011 of: making coins resembling and similar to United States coins; issuing, passing, selling, and possessing Liberty Dollar
