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At current metal prices it costs 2.4 cents to make a penny and 11.2 cents to make a nickel. This week President Obama asked Congress for permission to change the mix of metal that goes into these coins, because apparently the zinc and tinfoil they’re made of now is just too expensive.

In hidden vaults across the country, the US government is building a stockpile of $1 coins. The hoard has topped $1.1bn - imagine a stack of coins reaching almost seven times higher than the International Space Station - and the piles have grown so large the US Federal Reserve is running out of storage space.

Most people think spare change just weighs them down. But one California man put his to good use - saving up enough coins and dollar bills to pay his hefty $14,000 property tax bill.

There’s actually quite a bit to learn from the history of Islamic coinage that could benefit the alternative currency movement today. In the 7th century the Arabian Peninsula was inhabited almost entirely by nomadic tribes of Bedouins. Arabian markets were flush with Roman and Persian silver coins, but when those Empires began debasing their currencies Muslims began to mint their own. So, from the outset the industry of Islamic coins was a movement to provide an honest alternative to fraudulent currency.

Bernard von NotHaus, 67, was convicted today by a federal jury of making, possessing, and selling his own coins, announced Anne M. Tompkins, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina. Following an eight-day trial and less than two hours of deliberation, von NotHaus, the founder and monetary architect of a currency known as the Liberty Dollar, was found guilty by a jury in Statesville, North Carolina, of making coins resembling and similar to United States coins.

Among the silliest things that people say about gold standard systems is that under them, the “money supply” grows about 2% per year, due to mining. This is demonstrably false – not only that, but so utterly wrong as to induce falling-off-the-chair guffaws from those who understand such things. For an example in the United States in 1775, the total amount of currency in circulation (primarily gold and silver coins) was an estimated $12 million. In 1900, it was $1,954 million – an increase of 163x!

Here's the story. A jury decided that a Philadelphia woman, Joan Langbord, who found the coins in her father's bank deposit box, never should have owned them, and that the U.S. government was right to take them back.

Politicians in Washington hardly let a few minutes go by without mentioning how broke the government is. So, it's a little surprising that they've created a stash of more than $1 billion that almost no one wants.

Unused dollar coins have been quietly piling up in Federal Reserve vaults in breathtaking numbers, thanks to a government program that has required their production since 2007.

And even though the neglected mountain of money recently grew past the $1 billion mark, the U.S. Mint will keep making more and more of the coins under a congressional mandate.