6 ms·

Interesting idea, however, it seems like it would be slower for people to calculate what change to give, also Americans won't even use the $1 coin, I can't see

by s0rce 9y ago

Interesting idea, however, it seems like it would be slower for people to calculate what change to give, also Americans won't even use the $1 coin, I can't see the 18c coin gaining wide acceptance.

saghm 9y ago
I can only speak for myself, but I (an American) tend to any away from using coins at all just because they're rather unwieldy compared to bills or credit/debit cards, which are light, easily stored in a wallet, and useful in much smaller quantities.
- gozur88 9y ago
  That's because American coins aren't worth anything. I'd like to see $5 and $20 coins, and the elimination of the penny and nickel, which would mean I don't have to carry around paper money any more. Traveling to Europe I found the euro coins to be much more convenient.
  - saghm 9y ago
    Interesting! Out of curiosity, what aspects of coins do you find more convenient than paper money?
    - gozur88 9y ago
      In the US you pay in paper money and you're almost always going to get some change in coins. Pretty much that means you're always carrying around both bills and coins. The coins have so little value most people pay with bills and then just pocket the coins without counting them. At the end of the day the coins go into a jar, and eventually you have to lug that twenty pound jar to the bank or one of those coin machines. Why not carry usable amounts of cash in coins instead? You pay in coins and you get coins back in change. Of course that doesn't work if need to carry larger denominations, but if you're going to buy lunch or pop down to the liquor store it's more convenient, IMO.
      - ghaff 9y ago
        I'm the opposite. I carry a wallet-like thing anyway for cards and other misc paper. Paper currency is just a few more pieces of paper. Coins are another pouch or something that I need to carry. Although, to tell the truth, I pay cash so seldom in the US these days that it doesn't really matter.
        Symbiote 9y ago
        My wallet includes a pouch for coins; I think that's fairly standard for a wallet sold in Europe. Coins are easier to tell apart, and I never like the grubby $1 bills I get in the USA. But, I don't often use cash either -- mostly when splitting the bill in a restaurant, since it's easier to hand the waiter 200kr than have everyone use the card terminal in turn to pay their exact 194.23kr share.
      - saghm 9y ago
        One of the issues with coins for me is weight/volume. It wouldn't be too much work for me to have $20 in $1 bills in my wallet, but carrying around $20 in quarters (or even $1 coins, to be honest) seems like it would be much more effort, since it would take up a large amount of the space in my pocket and likely be fairly uncomfortable for my leg.
        gozur88 9y ago
        That's why I want a $5 and $20 coin.
  - repsilat 9y ago
    "Dime and quarter" is awkward -- it's a benefit to have the smallest positive difference between any two piles of coins to be a coin value. Either get rid of the dime, or replace the quarter with a 20 and/or 50 cent piece.
    - kurthr 9y ago
      If we got rid of the 1c penny and 5c nickel, then the dime would be the smallest/thinnest coin... having change in $0.1 increments seems as reasonable to me as having the current (e.g. gasoline) pricing in $0.001 mils. Just shift up an order of magnitude for physical payment. The FED is targeting 2% inflation a year so every century or so we should shift an order of magnitude in value.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    Worthless coins is a feature, not a bug for me. I can toss them somewhere and eventually redeem them in a Coinstar machine. I don't like the bigger Euro coins. It means I actually need to be aware of spending the coins when I travel to Europe. Much prefer only bills, touchless cards/phone, credit cards.
  - Thiez 9y ago
    Euro coins only go up to 2 euros, does that really make such a difference? Here in the Netherlands we don't really use the 1 and 2 eurocent coins anymore. It was decided that they're just annoying, so (almost?) all shops always round prices to the nearest amount that can be divided by 5 cents (Only when you pay with cash, electronic payments are not rounded. Naturally you can still pay with 1 and 2 cent coins, you'll just never get them back as change). I visit Germany a couple of times a year and it always surprises me they're still bothering with those 1 and 2 cent coins.
  - treehau5 9y ago
    Just got back from Europe. Can't stand those 1 and 2€ pieces. The worst part is when we got back to change our leftover euros back to dollars, the bank wouldn't take the coins. Now I have a stack of them sitting on my dresser.
rspeer 9y ago
In case it isn't clear, this is a bit of mathematical play, not an actual proposal.
- meric 9y ago
  "Assuming each amount of change between 0 and 499 is equally likely" Yes.
wcummings 9y ago
IMO we should simultaneously introduce a new dollar coin and a two-dollar coin. Once you have two-dollar coins, you're able to conveniently make small purchases exclusively using coinage.
- semi-extrinsic 9y ago
  FWIW, both Switzerland and Japan have coins that are about $5 (5 CHF = $5.14 and ¥500 = $4.5 right now).
  - Symbiote 9y ago
    Perhaps a more interesting measure is how many coins it takes to buy a Big Mac, or whether the coins are worth so little it would normally be done with paper money. For example, the Big Mac index of the UK is £3.09, which is fairly reasonable for coins (£2 + £2 + 10p). For Switzerland, it's 6.50Fr, so 5Fr + 1Fr + 0.5Fr. But for the US, it's $5.06, which needs the paper $5.
- nayuki 9y ago
  In other words... copy Canada. We have proven that it works already!
  - wcummings 9y ago
    Basically. England, too.
Retra 9y ago
I never understood this. They start printing $1 coins and complain that nobody uses them. Then they stop printing them. Of course nobody uses them. Their wallets are filled with bills. That they keep printing. Then they announce a coin that will surely be cancelled in a few months, and collectors jump on it. Americans would use a $1 coin if the deployment strategy wasn't garbage, condemning them to collector status almost immediately.
- ghaff 9y ago
  So what's the argument for the government forcing people to use a coin they have repeatedly chosen not to use voluntarily? In any case, at this point in history, it would seem to make little sense to overhaul currency denominations.
  - cwp 9y ago
    The problem is that the coins won't be useful unless the entire country adopts them together. By signalling that they're not really serious about it, the Treasury ensures that they won't be adopted. Transforming the currency is a fairly big project: - banks have to introduce the new coins in quantity - banks have to collect the old bills for return to the treasury - cash registers have to be redesigned and replaced - vending machines need to be updated to accept the new coins - businesses have to stock the new coins to give out as change - pricing and accounting may have to be updated to handle new rounding rules That's a lot of work. People will do it if they think the change is here to stay, but otherwise it's not worth it. And of course, society won't reap the benefits of the change if all this stuff doesn't get done.
    - ghaff 9y ago
      Speaking for myself I don't want dollar coins. And I expect a lot of others agree. And would vote against it given the opportunity.
    - ghaff 9y ago
      Honest question. What benefits? Especially with so many transactions going electronic, it also seems an odd time to make an expensive and disruptive currency shift even if there were some small net positive. Wouldn't the effort be better spent on stored value cards? (Though I wonder if even the time for that is getting past given smartphone payments.)

by s0rce 9y ago

Interesting idea, however, it seems like it would be slower for people to calculate what change to give, also Americans won't even use the $1 coin, I can't see the 18c coin gaining wide acceptance.

saghm 9y ago

I can only speak for myself, but I (an American) tend to any away from using coins at all just because they're rather unwieldy compared to bills or credit/debit cards, which are light, easily stored in a wallet, and useful in much smaller quantities.

gozur88 9y ago
That's because American coins aren't worth anything. I'd like to see $5 and $20 coins, and the elimination of the penny and nickel, which would mean I don't have to carry around paper money any more. Traveling to Europe I found the euro coins to be much more convenient.
- saghm 9y ago
  Interesting! Out of curiosity, what aspects of coins do you find more convenient than paper money?
  - gozur88 9y ago
    In the US you pay in paper money and you're almost always going to get some change in coins. Pretty much that means you're always carrying around both bills and coins. The coins have so little value most people pay with bills and then just pocket the coins without counting them. At the end of the day the coins go into a jar, and eventually you have to lug that twenty pound jar to the bank or one of those coin machines. Why not carry usable amounts of cash in coins instead? You pay in coins and you get coins back in change. Of course that doesn't work if need to carry larger denominations, but if you're going to buy lunch or pop down to the liquor store it's more convenient, IMO.
    - ghaff 9y ago
      I'm the opposite. I carry a wallet-like thing anyway for cards and other misc paper. Paper currency is just a few more pieces of paper. Coins are another pouch or something that I need to carry. Although, to tell the truth, I pay cash so seldom in the US these days that it doesn't really matter.
      - Symbiote 9y ago
        My wallet includes a pouch for coins; I think that's fairly standard for a wallet sold in Europe. Coins are easier to tell apart, and I never like the grubby $1 bills I get in the USA. But, I don't often use cash either -- mostly when splitting the bill in a restaurant, since it's easier to hand the waiter 200kr than have everyone use the card terminal in turn to pay their exact 194.23kr share.
    - saghm 9y ago
      One of the issues with coins for me is weight/volume. It wouldn't be too much work for me to have $20 in $1 bills in my wallet, but carrying around $20 in quarters (or even $1 coins, to be honest) seems like it would be much more effort, since it would take up a large amount of the space in my pocket and likely be fairly uncomfortable for my leg.
      - gozur88 9y ago
        That's why I want a $5 and $20 coin.
- repsilat 9y ago
  "Dime and quarter" is awkward -- it's a benefit to have the smallest positive difference between any two piles of coins to be a coin value. Either get rid of the dime, or replace the quarter with a 20 and/or 50 cent piece.
  - kurthr 9y ago
    If we got rid of the 1c penny and 5c nickel, then the dime would be the smallest/thinnest coin... having change in $0.1 increments seems as reasonable to me as having the current (e.g. gasoline) pricing in $0.001 mils. Just shift up an order of magnitude for physical payment. The FED is targeting 2% inflation a year so every century or so we should shift an order of magnitude in value.
- ghaff 9y ago
  Worthless coins is a feature, not a bug for me. I can toss them somewhere and eventually redeem them in a Coinstar machine. I don't like the bigger Euro coins. It means I actually need to be aware of spending the coins when I travel to Europe. Much prefer only bills, touchless cards/phone, credit cards.
- Thiez 9y ago
  Euro coins only go up to 2 euros, does that really make such a difference? Here in the Netherlands we don't really use the 1 and 2 eurocent coins anymore. It was decided that they're just annoying, so (almost?) all shops always round prices to the nearest amount that can be divided by 5 cents (Only when you pay with cash, electronic payments are not rounded. Naturally you can still pay with 1 and 2 cent coins, you'll just never get them back as change). I visit Germany a couple of times a year and it always surprises me they're still bothering with those 1 and 2 cent coins.
- treehau5 9y ago
  Just got back from Europe. Can't stand those 1 and 2€ pieces. The worst part is when we got back to change our leftover euros back to dollars, the bank wouldn't take the coins. Now I have a stack of them sitting on my dresser.

rspeer 9y ago

In case it isn't clear, this is a bit of mathematical play, not an actual proposal.

meric 9y ago
"Assuming each amount of change between 0 and 499 is equally likely" Yes.

wcummings 9y ago

IMO we should simultaneously introduce a new dollar coin and a two-dollar coin. Once you have two-dollar coins, you're able to conveniently make small purchases exclusively using coinage.

semi-extrinsic 9y ago
FWIW, both Switzerland and Japan have coins that are about $5 (5 CHF = $5.14 and ¥500 = $4.5 right now).
- Symbiote 9y ago
  Perhaps a more interesting measure is how many coins it takes to buy a Big Mac, or whether the coins are worth so little it would normally be done with paper money. For example, the Big Mac index of the UK is £3.09, which is fairly reasonable for coins (£2 + £2 + 10p). For Switzerland, it's 6.50Fr, so 5Fr + 1Fr + 0.5Fr. But for the US, it's $5.06, which needs the paper $5.
nayuki 9y ago
In other words... copy Canada. We have proven that it works already!
- wcummings 9y ago
  Basically. England, too.

Retra 9y ago

I never understood this. They start printing $1 coins and complain that nobody uses them. Then they stop printing them. Of course nobody uses them. Their wallets are filled with bills. That they keep printing. Then they announce a coin that will surely be cancelled in a few months, and collectors jump on it. Americans would use a $1 coin if the deployment strategy wasn't garbage, condemning them to collector status almost immediately.

ghaff 9y ago
So what's the argument for the government forcing people to use a coin they have repeatedly chosen not to use voluntarily? In any case, at this point in history, it would seem to make little sense to overhaul currency denominations.
- cwp 9y ago
  The problem is that the coins won't be useful unless the entire country adopts them together. By signalling that they're not really serious about it, the Treasury ensures that they won't be adopted. Transforming the currency is a fairly big project: - banks have to introduce the new coins in quantity - banks have to collect the old bills for return to the treasury - cash registers have to be redesigned and replaced - vending machines need to be updated to accept the new coins - businesses have to stock the new coins to give out as change - pricing and accounting may have to be updated to handle new rounding rules That's a lot of work. People will do it if they think the change is here to stay, but otherwise it's not worth it. And of course, society won't reap the benefits of the change if all this stuff doesn't get done.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    Speaking for myself I don't want dollar coins. And I expect a lot of others agree. And would vote against it given the opportunity.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    Honest question. What benefits? Especially with so many transactions going electronic, it also seems an odd time to make an expensive and disruptive currency shift even if there were some small net positive. Wouldn't the effort be better spent on stored value cards? (Though I wonder if even the time for that is getting past given smartphone payments.)