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The National
Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act is a non-profit,
supporter-based/member-based, educational outfit based in Evansville,
Indiana. Their alternative currency (“warehouse receipts”/Certificates) is
100% backed by and redeemable in gold and silver, which is stored by a third
party, the Sunshine Minting, Inc. (Coeur d'Alene, Idaho). They also mint
NORFED's coinage, and are totally independent and not part of NORFED. The
founding of NORFED dates from September 11th 1974, when their Senior
Economist, Bernard von NotHaus, wrote To Know Value — An Economic
Research Paper and established the Royal Hawaiian Mint. His long-term
desire was to issue a legal, value-backed currency for Hawaii, and this was
to have been the Hawaiian Sovereign Currency, which was the result of some
23 years of toil and research. When this project was just about ready to be
marketed, he had an encouraging chance meeting with one of the Mint's
collectors. It was the evening of October 7th 1997, and they were both at
the Waikiki Branch Mint. The elderly benefactor became enthusiastic about
von NotHaus' ideas, so he urged von NotHaus to seriously consider taking a
similar economic model to the mainland. After a brief fact-finding trip, von
NotHaus made the decision to retire from the Mint and redesign the Hawaii
currency into a national issue. During this 11-month period, he formulated
his investigation into another paper, Free Market Currency, which
later led him to decide to launch the Free Money Movement as suggested by
Nobel Laureate Friedrich August von Hayek, and also to propose the world's
first working model for an “Organic Monetary Standard”. |
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The idea
gained momentum, and adherents, fairly quickly. “Within a year the
growing group of concerned Americans had became NORFED. And then at
11:00 PM on September 24, 1998, von NotHaus was on hand to finally take
delivery of the first shipment of American Liberty Currency”. On the
25th, this “Monetary Architect” then traveled to Sunshine Minting, and
hand-delivered the first sealed/tamperproof cartons of the freshly
printed, warehouse receipts to their Chief of Operations/Vice President,
who checked them into their vault (known as the Shelter System
Warehouse). “And on October 1, 1998, the results of an outstanding group
of very dedicated Americans bore fruit when the first American Liberty
Currency was distributed on schedule as planned.” Since its
introduction, about $5-10 million of NORFED money is in circulation,
growing to over 100,000 users nationally. At the center of it all is an
expanding network of Liberty Associates (who sign a contract with NORFED
and obtain the Liberty Dollars at a discount), Liberty Merchants, and
chartered Regional Currency Offices. “Although legal, it is not ‘legal
tender,’” yet the currency is supposedly being used in day-to-day
transactions across the country, and accepted in trade for
goods/services/wages by businesses, banks, churches, and the general
public. |
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It is worth
mentioning that von NotHaus considers Ralph Borsodi (Co-founded of International
Foundation for Independence) to be one of his mentors, and he unmistakably
shares the Doctor's displeasure with the fluctuating fiat money produced by
our government. |
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There have been several batches of Silver Liberty
coins, including issues from 1999, 2000, and 2003 which can be viewed at and
purchased directly from
http://www.norfed.org. Only a few thousand of
these were minted in a span of about 3 months, and it is considerably
different than all the Silver Liberty Dollars which followed (for one, the
reverse contains a heraldic design of ancient symbols with the legend, THE
SHELTER SYSTEM). Type 1-B, with a different reed-count, was minted by
Bernard at the Royal Hawaiian Mint. |
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| The Liberty
Dollar is a privately issued currency that was made to be an "inflation
proof" alternative to the United States dollar. It is based on an ounce of
silver, with one ounce of silver being currently equivalent to 20 Liberty
Dollars. Though the Liberty Dollar has been around since 1998, it languished
in obscurity with only a very limited following until 2006 when the
U.S. Mint issued a warning [Liberty Dollars Not Legal Tender, United
States Mint Warns Consumers "Justice Determines Use of Liberty Dollar
Medallions as Money is a Crime", published on September 14, 2006] about
using the Liberty Dollar as currency, and threatened individuals with
prosecution for trying to spend Liberty Dollars. It is unclear if the
government is really concerned that the Liberty Dollar would pose a threat
to the United States dollar, or if there were just some government
bureaucrats that had too much time on there hands. The publicity created by
the Mint's warning has caused a vast increase in demand for Liberty Dollars
and many more merchants began accepting Liberty Dollars in trade. It is
clear that the minting or possession of Liberty Dollars is not a crime. It
is unclear how it is a crime to accept them in trade as the Mint claims. The
United States Mint has a Consumer Alert with photos of Liberty Dollars at
http://www.usmint.gov/consumer/index.cfm?action=HotItems. |
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I have also seen 1 Dollar in
copper dated 2007. Liberty 20 Silver Dollars produced on Marco Island (tiny
Island in Florida) in 2006 and a different design of Libertad 20 Silver
Dollars in 2007 for Puerto Rica.. |
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Micro-Nations |
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Chiefa Coins |
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