As an American living in the UK, I have to say: I think pound coins are great.
Yes, they’re heavy, but they actually feel like they’re worth something. When you hold one, it has real “heft” to it; when you drop it, it makes a solid <thunk>; when you throw it at someone, it results in a personal injury lawsuit. You can’t mistake a pound coin for another coin.
Dollar coins (SBAs or Sackies) are too light, IMO; they don’t feel like they’re worth a dollar. I can see why people don’t like them and don’t trust them.
I asked an English friend once what they put in strippers’ G-strings now that there’s no note smaller than 5 pounds. He told me they actually buy US dollar bills for 1 pound each at the bar, put THOSE in, and let the strippers buy pounds back for a dollar each.
Dunno what they’d do without US paper money - scrip, maybe?
I still have only seen one…and that was one that a friend has collected (taken out of circulation). So, I agree that if the gov’t wants it to work (not that I do in particular…I prefer the dollar bill), then they’ll have to make more so they become commonplace & non-collectable. Consider the new quarters. There are more than enough for everyone to have a collection and still use them freely in commerce. IIRC, part of the purpose of the new quarters was to rekindle coin collecting.
Who are the morons hoarding sackies??!? As someone already pointed out, a HALF A BILLION of those suckers were recently minted, so we’re not talking about something that’s likely to become rare and valuable in the foreseeable future. These toads are like the arrested adolescents who hoard first issues of comics (which in most cases had print runs in the hundreds of thousands and aren’t likely to become rare any time soon)in the hope that they may one day be worth two or three times the original purchase price.
I very much favor the dollar coin, but the only time I’ve ever received any in a transaction was from a stamp machine at the post office.
Abolish the one dollar bill. Right now, this very minute. Pull all your singles out of your wallets and burn them immediately. Or mail them to me and I’ll burn them for you. Snail mail address available on request.
Having lived in Australia for six months, I say dollar coins (and $2 coins) are great. They’re practically indispensable! (And their “paper” currency is indeed made from some weird compound–it’s plasticy, but I couldn’t say for sure what it actually is made of. However, it’s indestructable. Go get yourself an AUD 5 or 10 bill and get yourself rotten drunk in a pub betting poor saps drinks that they can’t rip it. But I digress.)
As for the weight issue–get over yourselves. Do you have any idea how incredibly tiny American coins are? Went to Australia, got used to their large coins (none of which, IIRC, are smaller in diameter than our quarter, and all are much thicker), came home, and while recieving my first American change back from the Mickey D’s counter in San Francisco, could not get used to how tiny and insignificant our coinage is. It is worth more, yes, but start carrying around significant coinage from another country and you’ll learn what weight is.
Back to the OP–haven’t seen any. Wish I could get some so that I could do my part in stamping out the dollar bill. My bro Dave works as a Mickey D’s manager and he says that they won’t give them out, period. Any they get, they keep and take to the bank that night. Ick. I like George, but I’d like a dollar coin better.
OK. Up here in Canada, when the $1 bill was yanked and the loonie introduced, there was muttering about heaviness, etc., for about three or four days. Then everybody just sort of shut up. They found they could spend the things in vending machines. They thought the loon was pretty. Whatever, I don’t remember. But the point was we thought they were OK, and Confederation didn’t collapse. (Not due to the loonie, anyway.)
Much the same thing happened with the twonie. There was some initial confusion as to what it was to be called (we’re still not sure how to spell twonie), vulgar joking about “the queen with the bear behind”, discovery that some of the early coins separated, etc. But it’s now fine.
And for gods’ sake, people, a loonie weighs only 7 grams.
What’s to stop the strippers from getting a bunch of dollar bills elsewhere at the regular exchange rate, trading them in for pounds at the bar, and making a killing?
I live near Boston, and I haven’t seen a Sackie for at least 9 months! They seem to have disappeared from the cashier’s drawers. I even wanted a few to five to the neighborhood children at Christmas-there are none to be had! I can honestly say that in my area, they don’t exist!
I think the whole thing is a gigantic scam-the government has bamboozled stupid people into thinking that the damn things will be collectable-so everybody hoards the damn things, and the money disaapears from circulation!
“Sackie-less in Boston”
There’s an article in today’s Wall Street Journal on the circulation of the so-called “Golden Dollar” (on the front page of the C section). Mainly it’s just announcing the Mint’s deal with Safeway to start distributing Sackies in Safeway stores. Here are some highlights:
Out of 700 million Sackies in circulation, 600 million have been hoarded as collectibles. That leaves 100 million in use. There are an additional 300 million that are kept out of circulation and stored at the U.S. Mint reserve, for a grand total of 1 billion coins minted so far.
The government is unwilling to ban the paper dollar to force use of the new coin, because it’s feared that the move would be politically unpopular. There are 7.5 billion greenbacks in circulation.
So the Mint has worked up a deal with a number of stores (including Safeway this week and WalMart a little while ago): The Mint supplies the stores with Sackies directly, so that the store will put them into consumers’ hands (as opposed to the consumer having to chase them down and ask for them at the local bank). This is done in the hopes that consumers are finally finished squirreling them away as keepsakes and will start using them in daily trade.
That’s about it, though there were some other little factoids: The coin is made of manganese and other industrial metals; and it has a much higher rate of consumer recognition and satisfaction than the Susan B. Anthony ever did (only 920 million of those minted across 21 years).
Ah, the toonie - now that is a fine piece of currency. A golden center inside a silver ring - very nice, very nice.
Another problem with Sackies - beautiful coin, very PC, but they tarnish so quickly! The golden veneer is quickly replaced with the smudge that resembles a dirty penny - not pretty, sadly.
And what the heck is this thing you call a “gram,” matt? Try using a real measurement system, buddy!
Esprix, being 1.78 meters (metres?) and weighing 74.84 kg
I don’t know what the problem is - just like Canada, it will all blow over in a week or two after the paper bills are finally removed from circulation.
IIRC in Ireland, when they got rid of the pound note, the Government just rectricted the supply of £1 and £5 notes, to encourage the use of coins in change. After a while, they increased the supply of £5s.
You won’t end up with 10 dollar coins in your pocket - how many of you have 10, dollar bills in your pockets at the moment?
I’d like to add that in today’s Wall Street Journal story, there’s a really dorky graphic which tells us where the 1 billion Sackies have gone: 600 million Sackie have been “Hoarded as collectibles,” 300 million are being held in the U.S. Mint reserve, and the remaining 100 million have been, and I quote, “Used to buy things.”
That’s the best they could do? “Used to buy things”?? How about “Spent”??
Hrm. I like the Sackies, but I’m a change spender, so replacing dollar bills would work for me. I’ve only gotten Sackies as change from a MetroCard vending machine, and I spent them with no difficulty.
As an aside …
… we have one of these in my office building. Very odd.
Yeah, that was a pretty poor article in a number of ways. I think the article was mainly just announcing the deal with Safeway so that shareholders of Safeway could judge for themselves what effect the deal might have on the company’s fortunes, or something like that. The rest of the article was fleshed out pretty poorly.
I got the impression that it would be easier to gain widespread acceptance of Sackies if the Mint could get rid of the paper dollars altogether. But the government won’t let that happen, so I guess the Mint has to dribble Sackies into the economy a little at a time (only 1.6 million going to Safeway initially). I guess they have to go slow in order to wait for the hoarding to stop and then see to what degree the Sackies begin to replace dollars in everyday cash transactions.
However, this wasn’t spelled out in the article. The article didn’t even say why 300 million are kept in the reserve, when they will eventually be circulated, or whether there are plans to mint more of them.
Altogether, the article was pretty sketchy on anything other than the raw details of the Safeway deal. It provided some background info, but the material wasn’t tied together coherently.
By the way, I don’t know if anyone else has pointed it out, but the OP probably misspelled the name of the Native American explorer on the face of the coin. The article has it typed as “Sacagawea.” (Not that I would have known that–or much of anything else about the coin–before reading the newspaper article. :))
And I still haven’t seen a Sackie yet, anywhere or anytime. And it’s not like I live in a cave or something…
I don’t think anyone is distressed at America’s lack of fifty cent bills – yet, in terms of the buying power most of us grew up with, a dollar is worth about fifty cents. If that. I think we could get along fine without paper dollars.
I’d definitely like to scrap the paper dollar and the penny, and possibly the nickle as well.
I know many people are against phasing out the paper dollar, but does anyone really want pennies? Those little penny cups – “take a penny/leave a penny” – have been common for several years. Hardly anyone wants to be bothered with pennies. Why can’t we get rid them, and just round things off?
You all want 50 cent bills? Well, it seems the treasury can accomodate you. I don’t think these things are still printed, but apparently they are still legal tender. Check it out: Fractional Currency! http://www.bep.treas.gov/fractionalcur.htm
I watched Wheel last nite while at the laundry mat. The guy won the grand prize of 25,00 dollars. He won 25,000 dollar coins that is. They even showed the coin and talked a little about like it was new car or something.
You can’t mistake a pound coin for another coin.
The golden veneer is quickly replaced with the smudge that resembles a dirty penny - not pretty, sadly.