The Eisenhower dollar replaced the prior dollar coin soon after he died (1971 IIRC), approved by the Democrat Congress. In 1979, after years of complaints from feminists that the only non-allegorical persons featured in U.S. currency had been men, the Democrat Congress approved a new dollar coin with Susan B. Anthony (a Republican suffragist) on the obverse. The SBA dollar was a huge flop due to its size (much smaller than traditional dollar coins, and not much bigger than a quarter, leading to confusion when feeling for coins in one’s pocket), and they stopped minting them after 1981. However, by that time, most vending machines and buses and such had been adapted to accept SBA dollar-sized dollar coins. not the earlier, larger ones, and when the Treasury tried to bring back dollar coins in 1999 (with one final run of the SBA dollar) and when Congress approved the Sacagawea dollar (first minted in 2000) and the presidenti dollar coins (first minted in 2007), they kept that unfortunate size.
If we’re married to that sized dollar coin, as appears to be the case, we should start looking at coins as we do with dollar bills (which are all the same size).
No, dollar (and half-dollar) coins were very prevalent and staples of collectors long before the Ike dollars. Ike did not “replace” anything, since there were no dollars for some 35 years. Last being the “Peace” SILVER dollar, stopped 1935. The venerable “Morgan” dollars were before that and perpetuated for decades.
There is a VERY long history of Americans using “too big” and “too heavy” and “cumbersome”, “inconvenient” large coins for transactions.
Paper money is recent and as people instinctively knew way back, “worthless”.
We’ve become such sheeple to what the “norm” is for 50+ years that half the FReepers insist they must have worthless bills (which are really just promisory notes) instead of real metal.