Should we rename the melon grab into the cash grab? Forever minted onto the Vermont Innovation $1 coin, (official currency of the United States, the District of Columbia, and the five U.S. territories) the grab will now live in the history books thanks to Burton and the VT government. With the story breaking earlier today from Burton, the new dollar coin represents “Jake Burton Carpenter, Burton, and Vermont’s unique role in pioneering snowboarding’s art, community, and culture.” Currently, it is for sale for $35.00 on the U.S. Mint’s official website but can be found on plenty of secondhand seller pages for much cheaper. And while we joke about how we can’t believe it wasn’t a method on the coin, it is still huge news for snowboarding to wind up on legal tender. It also leads to another joke. If snowboarding is so damn American that we put it on our cash, why do we still use centimeters to measure boards? Surfing was not invented here and those lengths are in feet and inches. Skiing be damned. Let’s take back what is rightfully ours and start asking shops if they have the latest board in a 5’1″.

Back to the news. While our art director’s first reaction was “Damn, now everyone is a gold medalist,” the coin is Manganese-Brass (88.5% Cu, 6% Zn, 3.5% Mn, 2% Ni) which is mostly composed of copper. It weighs 8.1 g and has an estimated worth online anywhere from $5.00-$50.00 currently. Craig Cambell and Justin Kunz designed the reverse side of the coin which is what boasts the young rider complete with a helmet which we can only assume is to plenty of parents’ delight. We are guessing that it just takes a long time to put currency into circulation because the mint date on these Vermont coins are stamped as 2022. So we are either very slow at reporting news, or that is just how long it takes to turn metal into money. Sadly, it will still take a large amount of these to ride at most major ski resorts if you end up deciding to spend them. Good luck hunting for them!