6 ms·

Why the US keeps minting coins people hate and won't use

40 points by dmytton 16y ago

Corrado 16y ago
I personally would use the $1 coin if retailers would give them to me. I'm not going to the bank to make a special purchase of coins, but if they come back in change I'm happy to take them.
ohashi 16y ago
I hate coins. Does't matter the currency. I don't have a change purse, no coin slot in my wallet. They rattle around in my pocket and are unnecessarily heavy.
- zokier 16y ago
  I'm not sure if 1 eur notes would be really any better than the coins we have now. I personally find small currencies difficult anyways, as I have grown up using plastic as payment.
- silencio 16y ago
  I hate having a huge stack of $1 bills even more, especially given the state of US paper bills now (hello wear and tear) and that they are identical in size and feel to all the other bills. When I was vacationing in Europe, I absolutely loved the euro and pound coins for their convenience of not having to dig through bills in my wallet (and the 1/2 euro coins especially, for the way they were executed). Nevermind that the bills too are a lot nicer than what the US has today, and we're barely catching up with this whole color thing. I love the idea of $1 coins too, but I think they were badly executed in the US for a long time where the $1 coin was not much different in look and feel from a quarter. Nowadays it's really only that whole thing about retailers not wanting to accept it/customers not wanting to use it. I think the US should make a huge push towards getting rid of the $1 and $2 bills in favor of coins. There's so many positives to this I can't even begin to imagine (for one, not having to carry around $10 worth of quarters to feed parking meters for a single hour where I don't necessarily feel like swiping my credit card...).
- ugh 16y ago
  I don't have a change purse, no coin slot in my wallet. Well … there’s your problem.
  - ohashi 16y ago
    I don't want to carry those around either. Honestly, I prefer just having a few bills and a credit card.
gaius 16y ago
The way the UK switched from pound notes to pound coins was simply to withdraw the notes from circulation. In Egypt you can get 25 Piastre notes, they are worth about 4p in Sterling. Local cab drivers sometimes refuse to accept them.
- timthorn 16y ago
  Pound notes are still printed in Scotland and are legal tender for the entire UK. It always makes me feel quite nostalgic when I get one.
  - legooolas 16y ago
    Pound notes are also still printed and in use in the channel islands, although they aren't legal tender for the UK from there, but then the coins aren't either (despite being virtually identical).
  - ropiku 16y ago
    I knew that scottish pounds aren't legal tender: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_pound_sterling#Scotland_and_Northern_Ireland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_pound_sterling... Bus driver in England did not accept my £5 scottish note.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - gaius 16y ago
      Hence the origin of the saying, to get away Scot free.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- FluidDjango 16y ago
  "...was simply to withdraw the notes..." ? ! As the article points out this would take "an act of Congress." There is an excellent reason that "act of Congress" is a figure of speech meaning ~Herculean feat of struck-by-lightening probability~
fbnt 16y ago
These days there isn't really need to keep using traditional currency anymore. Since I don't get charged for using them, I use cards even for <5€ payments now and I hardly carry real money with me anymore. It's also much easier to monitor your expenses this way. There are still an enormous amount of shops/businesses that only accept physical money, but I think the world will be ready for electronic-only currency in 10-30 years time.
- sgift 16y ago
  I would love to agree with you, but using cards for every transaction makes it quite simple for the card companies / banks to monitor spending habits and selling them to interested parties (or the government). But still, not having to carry Euro coins would be great. They are awfully heavy.
- silencio 16y ago
  > Since I don't get charged for using them... That cost is factored into your purchase somehow, and if it isn't and it's a problem to the retailer paying the fees, it will be eventually. Transaction fees seem insignificantly small, but they'll easily chew into any profit margin and more for a payment as small as €5 (as small as, not less than). This is why at least in the US, lots of retailers try to enforce minimum purchases, tack on surcharges, and have differing prices for card and cash payments even if it's against the terms of their merchant agreement. There's also that whole aspect of dealing strictly in cash being convenient for tax fraud and purchases that can't easily be traced. Those two are possibly the biggest stumbling blocks for an all electronic currency. Case in point: I love the idea of going that way because it makes my finances easier to manage, but I hate that my CC company already tracks what I buy with my card to determine my credit-worthiness and more that has nothing to do with fraud monitoring, and it's frankly none of anyone's business what I buy with my own damn money if I have had no trouble paying my bills in full on time for years on end. There's so many pros and cons here, I really don't know which way to go.
  - eru 16y ago
    Of course there's always some cost in handling payments. Cash also has costs for the merchant---somebody has to bring all that cash to the bank for example. Debit card payments (in Germany at least) are as free as it gets for the merchant, and they get their money immediately (not several days later like with credit cards). (I still prefer cash.)
ajtaylor 16y ago
As an American living in Europe I can say that I love having 1 and 2 Euro coins. Yes, they sometimes can get heavy and they do jingle. But that's more than offset by the convenience. Quarters seem very puny in comparison now. As a side benefit, a pocket full of coins can mean you're carrying around 10+ EUR. No wallet needed at all!
- electromagnetic 16y ago
  It's the same here in Canada with the $1 and $2 coins. I always like to keep a minimum of $10 on me regardless of my cards and what not. But it's such a convenience just to have the change in my pocket rather than my wallet (which is so stuffed full of cards and paper that it's heavier than a pocket full of change as-is) when I'm just visiting a friends house down the street.
- Luc 16y ago
  I take this combination of euro-cent coins with me when I go shopping: 1, 2, 2, 5, 10, 10, 20, 50. Et voila, you can always pay exact change for any cent value with only 8 coins.
  - Yaggo 16y ago
    I take a plastic card instead. Voilà, I can always pay the exact sum!
    - Luc 16y ago
      Ah, well, where I shop that's not always an option. Besides, I like leaving a tip when I get served.
  - mtr 16y ago
    And I find all of the copper-coloured coins (1, 2, 5) a hassle. Switzerland seems to have this figured out as the smallest coin is 5 centimes. To the average American who doesn't like dollar coins, imagine their reaction when they find out that Switzerland has a 5 CHF coin. Their smallest bill is 10 CHF.
eggoa 16y ago
"coins people hate and don't use" I was sure that this would be about pennies. Sure, you get them as change but I've never spent one in my life.
- akadruid 16y ago
  "Spend a penny" is British slang for urinate. It started with coin-operated toilets and continues precisely because pennies are no longer spent individually on anything.
- jdhopeunique 16y ago
  There needs to be some plan to phase out pennies. Perhaps have retailers round prices after tax to the nearest multiple of 5 or nearest quarter and phase out nickels and dimes as well.
  - mattmillr 16y ago
    We should get rid of at least pennies and nickels (both of which cost more to make than they are worth.) The last time the US phased out a denomination -- the half-cent piece in 1857 -- it had more purchasing power than a dime does today. Besides, if we got rid of the penny and nickel, the size of the dime would finally actually make sense.
jasonkester 16y ago
Dollar coins are in wide use. Just not in the USA. Head down to Ecuador and pay for something with a five dollar bill. (Ecuador, El Salvador, and a few other places use the US dollar as their official currency). You'll get dollar coins in change. It works great. Coins have value. Especially since nobody uses pennies down there. Everything costs a multiple of five cents. Hopefully this little bit of 3rd world efficiency will trickle up the the 1st world.
- FluidDjango 16y ago
  As has been pointed out, coins were "accepted" elsewhere once notes were withdrawn. Looking at the title provides clue to human behavior: then there is no need to ask "why do people resist accepting what they hate." Simple principles of shaping behavior suggest one simple principle: reinforcement: offer discount for using coins (i.e., $1.01 of merchandise for a $1 coin) or transaction penalty for paying with notes.
- CWuestefeld 16y ago
  Several years ago I vacationed in Bali (my employer was paying -- woohoo!). At the time, the exchange rate was 10,000:1. So I'd walk into a bank with $100US, and walk out as a "millionaire" in Indonesian Rupiah. When you buy something in a store there, they pretty much ignore the two least significant digits. They make up the rounding error for you by giving you a handful of mints.
ww520 16y ago
OT, the Treasury has a program of selling dollar coins with free shipping, to encourage dollar coin usage. And they accept credit card payment. People have been using credit cards to buy the coins and deposit them to the banks. It's a good way to earn credit card cashback.
- chopsueyar 16y ago
  Free market, baby!
- alaithea 16y ago
  I wonder how many of us it would take to start affecting change (no pun intended) among our local retailers by getting dollar coins this way and proceeding to use them around town on a consistent basis.
  - ww520 16y ago
    Here's the link. https://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/$1coin/?action=directShip https://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/$1coin/?action=directSh... From what I heard the Treasury doesn't lose money with the direct-ship program, at least with accounting on paper. It's kind of weird. They create the money out of the thin air using some metal. We bought them at face value using our money. The cost of the coins would be the metal, the minting process, plus the shipping cost, which is less than the face value of the coins. It defies intuition when it comes to the fiat money creation process. Of course coins out-last paper money many times and have long term cost saving result for the Treasury.
    - hga 16y ago
      The term of art for this is seigniorage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seigniorage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seigniorage See especially the "Seigniorage Today" section.
markbnine 16y ago
A nice example of designing features that nobody wants.
- Luyt 16y ago
  Indeed: I think it's indicative of a system which is too bureaucratic.
CognitiveLens 16y ago
Article headline should be "The US loses money as Congress appears unable to phase out $1 bills". There's really not a 'hate' issue here, and people will use the coins, but it's so painfully obvious that there won't be a change until the bill is phased out. It amazes me that the coin was even allowed into production without a plan to get rid of the bill - I can't believe that the hope was to have "a greater variety of currency media for circulation", which seems to be the only real effect of the coins' introduction so far.
SandB0x 16y ago
In England there are some Scottish notes in circulation, which as far as I know are legal tender*, but many people still don't want anything to do with them. A friend worked in a pub where they had always had a Scottish £5 note in the till to give as change. More often than not the customer would just put it straight in the tip jar. Edit: I am wrong about the concept of legal tender, and smazero is right. Interesting. Check out the few paragraphs beginning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_pound_sterling#Everyday_use_and_acceptance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_pound_sterling...
- smazero 16y ago
  I think 'legal tender' doesn't mean what people think it means; I heard some lawyer talking about this on the radio the other day: I don't remember exactly, but the gist was that the term legal tender is just to do with money that can't be refused as payment for a debt imposed by the courts. For example in the UK no coins are 'legal tender' as they can be refused as payment for a debt, but still all shops will accept them as they have a fixed value relative to legal tender. Alternatively my watch is not legal tender, but if I offered it to a shop keeper in exchange for a newspaper, there is nothing stopping the shop keeper from accepting it.
mattwdelong 16y ago
As a Canadian in the US, I miss my Loonie (1$ CAD Coin). I now open my wallet and say, "oh I`m good for cash, no need to stop at the bank" only to realize when I go pay for something that I have 10 x $1 bills. The ability to determine value of a bill based on colour, in Canada, is useful too.
loewenskind 16y ago
The US seems to have the worst currency setup of anywhere I've been. You have to put in a lot of effort to not end up with a wallet thick with one dollar bills and pockets full of pennies. The UK seems pretty bad as well since the the coin size doesn't seem to have much correlation to how much it's going to be worth. The EU is better, but I find Switzerland the best so far. No bill smaller than 10, all notes are different sizes so you never accidentally pay with a 100 instead of a 10. A nice big 5cf coin (it's cool to be able to buy a new DVD with 3 coins or less) and no pennies. There is a .05 coin but it's rare, most prices are to the nearest 0.1. Every time I go back home I remember how painful the US system is by comparison.
ZachPruckowski 16y ago
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned vending machines and tollbooths. In an age where every transaction more than about $10 is going on my credit card and I can't buy much of anything for less than $3, my primary use for coins and dollar bills is automated machines, all of which would need to be re-configured to take dollar coins.
- prodigal_erik 16y ago
  These coins have the same size and weight as the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacagawea_dollar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacagawea_dollar that debuted ten years ago. Are there vending machines out there that still don't take those, or that only take bills?
  - slouch 16y ago
    yes, there are plenty of vending machines that date the dollar coins and are unable to accept them. my local car wash and every parking meter i have seen in my county included.
marknutter 16y ago
I was at the MN State Fair last year with a buddy and he tried to pay for some milk with a Sacajawea $1 coin and the teenaged girl lamented that they didn't take foreign currency. After we told her it was American money she had to confirm it with a superior. Needless to say she looked pretty embarrassed, but I don't blame her, nobody seems to use these dollar coins. When I was traveling in Europe I really liked having change that was actually worth something. I especially liked the English Pounds because of their heft and the sound they made when clinked together in the hand.
terrble 16y ago
This is a problem, sure. But what about pennies? No one needs or wants those.
- matrix 16y ago
  Agreed. Unfortunately there's a group of lobbyists that have successfully prevented efforts to eliminate the penny (these groups primarily being "Save the Greenback" and the cotton industry). Sometimes I think we'd be better off eliminating congress...
beagle3 16y ago
Part of the reason is that American wallets don't have a coin purse inside them -- the reason for which is that coins aren't that useful. Catch-22
julius_geezer 16y ago
I tend to have them only if I've received them in change from a vending machine at the post office. I can't say that I have a preference one way or the other. Back 30 years ago I longed for the Washington Metro Farecard machines to accept them--in those days you about had to send your bills had to be all but starched and ironed before the machines would accept them. The technology improved tremendously, but as far as I know the machines still don't accept dollar coins.
blahblahblah 16y ago
It's actually a good thing that Americans refuse to accept dollar coins. The printing costs to make paper $1 bills are really the only check & balance that the people have against the devaluing of our currency through excessive printing of money.

40 points by dmytton 16y ago

I personally would use the $1 coin if retailers would give them to me. I'm not going to the bank to make a special purchase of coins, but if they come back in change I'm happy to take them.

ohashi 16y ago

I hate coins. Does't matter the currency. I don't have a change purse, no coin slot in my wallet. They rattle around in my pocket and are unnecessarily heavy.

zokier 16y ago
I'm not sure if 1 eur notes would be really any better than the coins we have now. I personally find small currencies difficult anyways, as I have grown up using plastic as payment.
silencio 16y ago
I hate having a huge stack of $1 bills even more, especially given the state of US paper bills now (hello wear and tear) and that they are identical in size and feel to all the other bills. When I was vacationing in Europe, I absolutely loved the euro and pound coins for their convenience of not having to dig through bills in my wallet (and the 1/2 euro coins especially, for the way they were executed). Nevermind that the bills too are a lot nicer than what the US has today, and we're barely catching up with this whole color thing. I love the idea of $1 coins too, but I think they were badly executed in the US for a long time where the $1 coin was not much different in look and feel from a quarter. Nowadays it's really only that whole thing about retailers not wanting to accept it/customers not wanting to use it. I think the US should make a huge push towards getting rid of the $1 and $2 bills in favor of coins. There's so many positives to this I can't even begin to imagine (for one, not having to carry around $10 worth of quarters to feed parking meters for a single hour where I don't necessarily feel like swiping my credit card...).
ugh 16y ago
I don't have a change purse, no coin slot in my wallet. Well … there’s your problem.
- ohashi 16y ago
  I don't want to carry those around either. Honestly, I prefer just having a few bills and a credit card.

gaius 16y ago

The way the UK switched from pound notes to pound coins was simply to withdraw the notes from circulation. In Egypt you can get 25 Piastre notes, they are worth about 4p in Sterling. Local cab drivers sometimes refuse to accept them.

timthorn 16y ago
Pound notes are still printed in Scotland and are legal tender for the entire UK. It always makes me feel quite nostalgic when I get one.
- legooolas 16y ago
  Pound notes are also still printed and in use in the channel islands, although they aren't legal tender for the UK from there, but then the coins aren't either (despite being virtually identical).
- ropiku 16y ago
  I knew that scottish pounds aren't legal tender: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_pound_sterling#Scotland_and_Northern_Ireland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_pound_sterling... Bus driver in England did not accept my £5 scottish note.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - gaius 16y ago
    Hence the origin of the saying, to get away Scot free.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
FluidDjango 16y ago
"...was simply to withdraw the notes..." ? ! As the article points out this would take "an act of Congress." There is an excellent reason that "act of Congress" is a figure of speech meaning ~Herculean feat of struck-by-lightening probability~

fbnt 16y ago

These days there isn't really need to keep using traditional currency anymore. Since I don't get charged for using them, I use cards even for <5€ payments now and I hardly carry real money with me anymore. It's also much easier to monitor your expenses this way. There are still an enormous amount of shops/businesses that only accept physical money, but I think the world will be ready for electronic-only currency in 10-30 years time.

sgift 16y ago
I would love to agree with you, but using cards for every transaction makes it quite simple for the card companies / banks to monitor spending habits and selling them to interested parties (or the government). But still, not having to carry Euro coins would be great. They are awfully heavy.
silencio 16y ago
> Since I don't get charged for using them... That cost is factored into your purchase somehow, and if it isn't and it's a problem to the retailer paying the fees, it will be eventually. Transaction fees seem insignificantly small, but they'll easily chew into any profit margin and more for a payment as small as €5 (as small as, not less than). This is why at least in the US, lots of retailers try to enforce minimum purchases, tack on surcharges, and have differing prices for card and cash payments even if it's against the terms of their merchant agreement. There's also that whole aspect of dealing strictly in cash being convenient for tax fraud and purchases that can't easily be traced. Those two are possibly the biggest stumbling blocks for an all electronic currency. Case in point: I love the idea of going that way because it makes my finances easier to manage, but I hate that my CC company already tracks what I buy with my card to determine my credit-worthiness and more that has nothing to do with fraud monitoring, and it's frankly none of anyone's business what I buy with my own damn money if I have had no trouble paying my bills in full on time for years on end. There's so many pros and cons here, I really don't know which way to go.
- eru 16y ago
  Of course there's always some cost in handling payments. Cash also has costs for the merchant---somebody has to bring all that cash to the bank for example. Debit card payments (in Germany at least) are as free as it gets for the merchant, and they get their money immediately (not several days later like with credit cards). (I still prefer cash.)

ajtaylor 16y ago

As an American living in Europe I can say that I love having 1 and 2 Euro coins. Yes, they sometimes can get heavy and they do jingle. But that's more than offset by the convenience. Quarters seem very puny in comparison now. As a side benefit, a pocket full of coins can mean you're carrying around 10+ EUR. No wallet needed at all!

electromagnetic 16y ago
It's the same here in Canada with the $1 and $2 coins. I always like to keep a minimum of $10 on me regardless of my cards and what not. But it's such a convenience just to have the change in my pocket rather than my wallet (which is so stuffed full of cards and paper that it's heavier than a pocket full of change as-is) when I'm just visiting a friends house down the street.
Luc 16y ago
I take this combination of euro-cent coins with me when I go shopping: 1, 2, 2, 5, 10, 10, 20, 50. Et voila, you can always pay exact change for any cent value with only 8 coins.
- Yaggo 16y ago
  I take a plastic card instead. Voilà, I can always pay the exact sum!
  - Luc 16y ago
    Ah, well, where I shop that's not always an option. Besides, I like leaving a tip when I get served.
- mtr 16y ago
  And I find all of the copper-coloured coins (1, 2, 5) a hassle. Switzerland seems to have this figured out as the smallest coin is 5 centimes. To the average American who doesn't like dollar coins, imagine their reaction when they find out that Switzerland has a 5 CHF coin. Their smallest bill is 10 CHF.

eggoa 16y ago

"coins people hate and don't use" I was sure that this would be about pennies. Sure, you get them as change but I've never spent one in my life.

akadruid 16y ago
"Spend a penny" is British slang for urinate. It started with coin-operated toilets and continues precisely because pennies are no longer spent individually on anything.
jdhopeunique 16y ago
There needs to be some plan to phase out pennies. Perhaps have retailers round prices after tax to the nearest multiple of 5 or nearest quarter and phase out nickels and dimes as well.
- mattmillr 16y ago
  We should get rid of at least pennies and nickels (both of which cost more to make than they are worth.) The last time the US phased out a denomination -- the half-cent piece in 1857 -- it had more purchasing power than a dime does today. Besides, if we got rid of the penny and nickel, the size of the dime would finally actually make sense.

jasonkester 16y ago

Dollar coins are in wide use. Just not in the USA. Head down to Ecuador and pay for something with a five dollar bill. (Ecuador, El Salvador, and a few other places use the US dollar as their official currency). You'll get dollar coins in change. It works great. Coins have value. Especially since nobody uses pennies down there. Everything costs a multiple of five cents. Hopefully this little bit of 3rd world efficiency will trickle up the the 1st world.

FluidDjango 16y ago
As has been pointed out, coins were "accepted" elsewhere once notes were withdrawn. Looking at the title provides clue to human behavior: then there is no need to ask "why do people resist accepting what they hate." Simple principles of shaping behavior suggest one simple principle: reinforcement: offer discount for using coins (i.e., $1.01 of merchandise for a $1 coin) or transaction penalty for paying with notes.
CWuestefeld 16y ago
Several years ago I vacationed in Bali (my employer was paying -- woohoo!). At the time, the exchange rate was 10,000:1. So I'd walk into a bank with $100US, and walk out as a "millionaire" in Indonesian Rupiah. When you buy something in a store there, they pretty much ignore the two least significant digits. They make up the rounding error for you by giving you a handful of mints.

ww520 16y ago

OT, the Treasury has a program of selling dollar coins with free shipping, to encourage dollar coin usage. And they accept credit card payment. People have been using credit cards to buy the coins and deposit them to the banks. It's a good way to earn credit card cashback.

chopsueyar 16y ago
Free market, baby!
alaithea 16y ago
I wonder how many of us it would take to start affecting change (no pun intended) among our local retailers by getting dollar coins this way and proceeding to use them around town on a consistent basis.
- ww520 16y ago
  Here's the link. https://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/$1coin/?action=directShip https://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/$1coin/?action=directSh... From what I heard the Treasury doesn't lose money with the direct-ship program, at least with accounting on paper. It's kind of weird. They create the money out of the thin air using some metal. We bought them at face value using our money. The cost of the coins would be the metal, the minting process, plus the shipping cost, which is less than the face value of the coins. It defies intuition when it comes to the fiat money creation process. Of course coins out-last paper money many times and have long term cost saving result for the Treasury.
  - hga 16y ago
    The term of art for this is seigniorage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seigniorage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seigniorage See especially the "Seigniorage Today" section.

markbnine 16y ago

A nice example of designing features that nobody wants.

Luyt 16y ago
Indeed: I think it's indicative of a system which is too bureaucratic.

CognitiveLens 16y ago

Article headline should be "The US loses money as Congress appears unable to phase out $1 bills". There's really not a 'hate' issue here, and people will use the coins, but it's so painfully obvious that there won't be a change until the bill is phased out. It amazes me that the coin was even allowed into production without a plan to get rid of the bill - I can't believe that the hope was to have "a greater variety of currency media for circulation", which seems to be the only real effect of the coins' introduction so far.

SandB0x 16y ago

In England there are some Scottish notes in circulation, which as far as I know are legal tender*, but many people still don't want anything to do with them. A friend worked in a pub where they had always had a Scottish £5 note in the till to give as change. More often than not the customer would just put it straight in the tip jar. Edit: I am wrong about the concept of legal tender, and smazero is right. Interesting. Check out the few paragraphs beginning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_pound_sterling#Everyday_use_and_acceptance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_pound_sterling...

smazero 16y ago
I think 'legal tender' doesn't mean what people think it means; I heard some lawyer talking about this on the radio the other day: I don't remember exactly, but the gist was that the term legal tender is just to do with money that can't be refused as payment for a debt imposed by the courts. For example in the UK no coins are 'legal tender' as they can be refused as payment for a debt, but still all shops will accept them as they have a fixed value relative to legal tender. Alternatively my watch is not legal tender, but if I offered it to a shop keeper in exchange for a newspaper, there is nothing stopping the shop keeper from accepting it.

mattwdelong 16y ago

As a Canadian in the US, I miss my Loonie (1$ CAD Coin). I now open my wallet and say, "oh I`m good for cash, no need to stop at the bank" only to realize when I go pay for something that I have 10 x $1 bills. The ability to determine value of a bill based on colour, in Canada, is useful too.

loewenskind 16y ago

The US seems to have the worst currency setup of anywhere I've been. You have to put in a lot of effort to not end up with a wallet thick with one dollar bills and pockets full of pennies. The UK seems pretty bad as well since the the coin size doesn't seem to have much correlation to how much it's going to be worth. The EU is better, but I find Switzerland the best so far. No bill smaller than 10, all notes are different sizes so you never accidentally pay with a 100 instead of a 10. A nice big 5cf coin (it's cool to be able to buy a new DVD with 3 coins or less) and no pennies. There is a .05 coin but it's rare, most prices are to the nearest 0.1. Every time I go back home I remember how painful the US system is by comparison.

ZachPruckowski 16y ago

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned vending machines and tollbooths. In an age where every transaction more than about $10 is going on my credit card and I can't buy much of anything for less than $3, my primary use for coins and dollar bills is automated machines, all of which would need to be re-configured to take dollar coins.

prodigal_erik 16y ago
These coins have the same size and weight as the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacagawea_dollar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacagawea_dollar that debuted ten years ago. Are there vending machines out there that still don't take those, or that only take bills?
- slouch 16y ago
  yes, there are plenty of vending machines that date the dollar coins and are unable to accept them. my local car wash and every parking meter i have seen in my county included.

marknutter 16y ago

I was at the MN State Fair last year with a buddy and he tried to pay for some milk with a Sacajawea $1 coin and the teenaged girl lamented that they didn't take foreign currency. After we told her it was American money she had to confirm it with a superior. Needless to say she looked pretty embarrassed, but I don't blame her, nobody seems to use these dollar coins. When I was traveling in Europe I really liked having change that was actually worth something. I especially liked the English Pounds because of their heft and the sound they made when clinked together in the hand.

terrble 16y ago

This is a problem, sure. But what about pennies? No one needs or wants those.

matrix 16y ago
Agreed. Unfortunately there's a group of lobbyists that have successfully prevented efforts to eliminate the penny (these groups primarily being "Save the Greenback" and the cotton industry). Sometimes I think we'd be better off eliminating congress...

beagle3 16y ago

Part of the reason is that American wallets don't have a coin purse inside them -- the reason for which is that coins aren't that useful. Catch-22

julius_geezer 16y ago

I tend to have them only if I've received them in change from a vending machine at the post office. I can't say that I have a preference one way or the other. Back 30 years ago I longed for the Washington Metro Farecard machines to accept them--in those days you about had to send your bills had to be all but starched and ironed before the machines would accept them. The technology improved tremendously, but as far as I know the machines still don't accept dollar coins.

blahblahblah 16y ago

It's actually a good thing that Americans refuse to accept dollar coins. The printing costs to make paper $1 bills are really the only check & balance that the people have against the devaluing of our currency through excessive printing of money.