I’m surprised that “dime” caught on. Feels just like a penny in my pocket fer crying out lound!! :mad:
Flymaster:
Obstreperous much? :rolleyes:
While we’re on the subject, let’s get rid of the penny. Talk about a worthless coin cluttering up my pockets! Just round off to the nearest nickel, yah?
I love Sackies.
I only wish they would produce and distrubute more 2 dollar bills.
I believe the whining of “ten sackies pull my pants down”
is a good deal of hot air. If you have 10 Sackies for god sake change them in for a $10.
I do not walk around with 10 quarters in my pocket. Why would I or anyone desire to do the same with the sackies?
Nothing personal Fenris. You were the first to bring up such a remark. So, I quoted you. Hearing that is a personal annoyance. Almost as annoying as hearing "This looks like Monopoly money" in regards to the new design bills.
I do think the 1 dollar coin could have been better designed. All in all I am quite happy with the Sackie.
Osip
jmullaney wrote:
Historical U.S. coin trivia:
Prior to 1857, pennies were about the size of half-dollar coins. You could easily tell the difference between a penny and a half-dollar because (1) the penny was slightly smaller, (2) the penny was made of bronze and the half-dollar was made of silver, and (3) the penny had a plain edge and the half-dollar had a reeded edge. (The reeded edge was originally put there to discourage people from shaving little bits of silver off of the coin, but it served equally well for tactile distinguishment.) However, these “large cents” were big and heavy and not terribly popular, and so in 1856-57 the Federal government started minting the new “small cents” out of an 88% copper, 12% nickel alloy. The modern penny is patterned after these early “small cents”, and is in fact the same shape and size as the first copper-nickel small cents (if not quite the same weight).
Dimes are the size they are now because they, like the half-dollar, used to be made out of silver. They contained 1/10 of a dollar’s worth of silver by weight, which isn’t much. They were the size they are now back when the “large cents” were still around.
Esprix wrote:
Not true. The 2-dollar bill hasn’t been redesigned either. 
OK, I was all over the treasury site
http://www.bep.treas.gov/index.htm
and I couldn’t find any reference to new $1 bills, either confirming or denying that they will be redesigned or discontinued.
Perhaps they’re waiting for public reaction.
They should either redesign them or get rid of them. Printing the old design is silly. When are we going to get rid of the old dollar bill?
**c_goat quotes a stupid cashier:
Cashier: “We don’t have dollar coins.”
Me: “Umm… we’ve always had dollar coins, it used to be Susan B. Anthony, but now it’s these and they’re gold colored”**
AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Doesn’t anyone remember the Eisenhower dollar coins?
While I agree with the reasoning for 1 dollar coins, I for one will wind up never using them. Here’s why:
My wallet doesn’t have a place for coins! Whenever I take off my pants, I take out my wallet, my keys and any loose change. While my wallet will go back into the pocket of whatever pair of pants I happen to put on next, the change is more likely to just sit on my desk or in a change jar somewhere. So while I now have a bunch of quarters that I never spend, I will instead have a bunch of 1 dollar coins that I will never spend. For me, that’s a bit of a step back.
Perhaps the Treasury should cut a deal with wallet makers to start putting coin pouches (that don’t look clunky… which, unfortunately, makes it rather unfeasible) onto their merchandise?
When I was in England, I was surprised to find actual musicians playing on streetcorners. They sounded good; some of them, I found, were bands warming up for club gigs that night.
I got a chance to ask a few why busking was so popular there; most of the answers I got back involved the introduction of the pound coin. Once people started throwing change that was worth something, it got to be worthwhile to play on the street, and the music scene just got better.
Just another benefit if the sackies take off…
I have only had a few pass by, I don’t know where the rest of them are. I think they are ugly and the fake gold tone makes them look like play money. They don’t bother me or excite me, they are just money.
I wouldn’t keep twenty of them in my pocket, but I wouldn’t keep twenty singles in my wallet either. We are probably stuck with them so we might as well learn to live with them.
For me, withdrawal of the dollar bill with total replacement by dollar coin would greatly increase my savings rate. I don’t EVER spend change of any kind (except for parking meters). If I need change to buy something, I get change from a bill. Any change in my pocket at the end of the day goes into a jar. When this jar is full (usually $60-80, depending on coin mix, every 1-2 months), it goes to the bank, to be deposited into an account that eventually gets transfered into an investment account.
I don’t know how well the sackies are catching on. I’ve never seen one. I do know that there seems to be an overabundance of dollar bills. I bought a 50 cent newspaper today (with a 20 bill) and got back 14 dollar bills, one 5 bill and two quarters. I’m just glad I didn’t get handed 14 sackies, a five and two quarters-that would have pulled down my pants (with belt and tight enough, thank you very much).
Freyr wrote:
Yeah! And what about the “Peace” dollars? And the Morgan Dollars! Good God, how many decades did we mint those darned Morgan dollar coins for?! And what about the Trade Dollar, and the Seated Liberty dollar? To say nothing of the GOLD dollar coins!
What do you mean, you weren’t around in 1840?!
Clearly, you’ve never waited tables.
Two points:
-
Dancers have a number of slots perfect for coin insertion, and one is particularly universally adaptable. Dollar coin, dollar bill, or deed to grandpa’s ranch, it will accomodate it.
-
A BUCK? Cheapskate.
I’m doing my part. I’ve spent $20 in Sackies in the last month, which isn’t much, but I’ve had absolutely no trouble having them accepted.
I actually like paper dollars more. They don’t jingle, or roll out of my pocket. But the sackies are perfectly legitimate, so I’m use them when I have them.
Bah. When the dancer is on stage, a tip of 1 or 2 $1 bills is customary. If you want a girl to visit you at your table, a $5 tip is a good way to get her to remember you, but is by no means required.
Table dances, which may be what you are thinking of, are $20 or $30, depending on the club.
These prices are pretty standard for Texas in general, but I suppose it could be different in other states. When I travel, I usually don’t wind up at a “Gentleman’s Club”. 
As for the logistics of tipping coins and putting them into various “slots”…um, ick. Think about where those coins may have been.
Dancers have individual ways of storing collected tips, but they generally follow two patterns: The more tacky ones (IMHO) have all the bills they collect during a dance stuffed in various pieces of clothing they may be wearing. They wind up with wads of bills sticking out of their lingerie like some kind of bizarre parasitic plant life. The better method is for the dancer to drop the bills in a pile once she gets them, usually near the pole, or in another spot onstage that she won’t accidentally trod (and possibly slip) on and is not within easy grab range of a larcenous customer. Coins instead of bills would make either method more difficult, since coins tend to roll or bounce when dropped.
That said, I’m in full favor of getting rid of $1 bills. I’m sure dancers will figure out a way to adapt.
I prefer paper money to coins. I would rather see “quarter” bills than dollar coins.
The main lobbying force behind the dollar coin is the vending machine industry. Well, who can blame them? My father works for a vending service and sees all the ideas for vending machines. One of his favorite was the french fry machine. When you put your money in, it fried up a fresh batch just for you. There was also a lot of excitement about vending machines for video tape rentals.
The vending industry hopes everyone will start carrying large numbers of dollar coins, so they can buy more expensive items from vending machines. But they are also moving towards machines that accept credit and debit cards. In my opinion, this is where they will succeed. Pump a bunch of dollar coins into a machine to get a DVD? No. Run my debit card through the scanner? Hmmm…
(Here is the french fry machine - http://www.tastyfries.com/machine.cfm )
MilTan - I’ll convince them to put coin pouches on wallets, if you’ll convince them to put an inside pocket in women’s suit jackets!
I proposed that once on this board before. It didn’t get much of a reaction.
My 12th grade history teacher had a paper quarter from about 1870 or so. It was pretty cool.
I used to get the Eisenhower Dollars when I lost a tooth (late 1970s), and the half dollars too.
What if the U.S. used the same material for their currency as Australia uses? I read an article a few months ago where apparently it’s a plastic compound fabric, that is almost as cheap as the linen paper, and (for the time being) is virtually counterfeit-proof.
Or, how about telling banks to just STOP denying the dollar coins are issued to banks, as my local branch just did today. Although, a $2 bill was no trouble!