The reason that you and everyone else just take coins home and stuff them in a jar is that they’re worth so little. If we had one- and two-dollar coins, you’d spend them throughout the day instead of just accumulating them. Don’t believe me? Ask people in one of the many industrialized countries that have eliminated the penny equivalent in favor of the dollar coin equivalent. And note that the American penny is one of the lowest value coins still being produced in the world.
Note that the US Treasury actually loses money on the penny and nickel coins because the production cost (including the cost of the raw metal) exceeds face value.
You can get hookers and blow from Coinstar? Awesome!!!
To think, I’ve been settling for those crummy gift cards.
Aside from coin enthusiasts and the vending machine industry, there seems to be very little interest in dollar coins. As noted above, the number of people clamoring for the latest offering is so small, the Mint is only making them for the collectors market, and is charging a premium.
In the interest of full disclosure, I really don’t like coins much. Paper money is vastly more convenient to carry. I wish they’d eliminate the penny already. I used to oppose dumping the penny, but I’ve since come to realize how truly worthless it is these days.
The commissary always has them available; I always ask for them in change when I go shopping, and every two or three weeks I go up to the cash cage and buy a roll of them.
I say bah to all who would decrease the variety of U.S. currency and coins. I want one, two, and five dollar coins. I want 15, 50, and 75 cent pieces. While we’re at it, I believe a mill coin should be minted in great numbers, 'cause it would take great numbers of them to buy something. Fifteen, twenty-five, and seventy-five dollar bills should be produced and circulated. Two hundred and five hundred dollar bills should be added (we used to have five hundreds).
A law should be passed that all merchants buy cash registers with drawers to accommodate all denominations and these must be made in the U.S., for economic stimulus purposes.
Today I got a cash refund of $11.40. It was one $5 bill, three $2 coins, and four $0.10 coins.
It is as Dewey Finn said. $1 and $2 coins are woven into life in Canada. We don’t chuck them aside; they are too valuable, and tend to get spent quickly. What did get chucked aside was the penny, but that is slowly going away. (The Mint stopped making them last spring, and will slowly take them in as they are returned to banks. The same is done with older banknotes.)
The last time I heard someone complaining that the dollar coins would be too heavy, I dug all the coins out of my pocket. Mixed in with the small stuff (including a dozen quarters) were 18 dollar coins. The weight and bulk of the wallet and cell phone in my other pockets were much more noticeable - and annoying - to me.
Quarters are silver-coloured and have reeded edges. Post Susie B dollar coins are gold-coloured and have smooth edges. No idea why people can’t tell them apart…
This is one reason I get dollar coins whenever I can - I’ve never had a vending machine reject one…
But we’re saving American lives by keeping them. What horrible carnage would there be if people didn’t have relatively harmless pennies to drop from tall buildings and started to resort to heavier nickels or :eek: dollar coins.
Count me in the “I’d rather have 10 one dollar bills in my pocket than 10 dollar coins” camp. One? Not a problem. More than that? Too large, heavy and clunky.
I’m very much in favour of this. Cheque, credit-card and debit-card transactions needn’t be affected, and cash sales could just be rounded to the nearest nickle.
Your brother-in-law makes cash-register drawers, right?
(An old Navy theory concerning the odd screw sizes in some pieces of equipment: Said equipment is made by someone whose brother-in-law owns a screw factory…)
I work on a college campus and the vending machines all give out Gold Sacajawea dollars as change… even if you put a dollar bill in and hit cancel, you will get a single gold coin as change. I like dollar coins and I hate paying a fee for coinstar, so I often bring a jar of small change to work, put in dimes and nickels into the vending machines, and hit cancel and get Sacajaweas back.
If you want to see how life would be without the dollar bill, go to Ecuador. They use US currency but they don’t seem to bother with the dollar bill. They use dollar coins and that works just fine.
it was that denomination experiment with scratch-and-sniff ink.
There is an establishment in Portland, OR that has a glut of two dollar bills; they give them for all change (buying a drink, or breaking a larger bill). They also encourage all tipping to be in multiples of $2. I’ll leave it to the reader to figure out the type of location this is, given the clues… 
I’d never had so many $2’s in my pocket at the same time.
“The version I heard was,” the $2 bills would go into the $1 slot that was freed up when the $1 bills were replaced by coins.
Another story I remember hearing was, $2 bills would be popular at “the $2 window” at race tracks. The problem is, hardly anyone bets $2 any more.
The two dollar bill supposedly fell into disfavor because the Southern states used to charge a “poll tax” to vote.
The tax was $2.00.
Black voters often couldn’t pay it, thus benefiting local governments to do what they damn well pleased.
~VOW
In 2011, the US mint produced nearly 5 billion pennies. That’s over 60% of all circulating coins produced by the mint, and enough for every man, woman, and child in the US to lose 16 of them in the cushions of their couch.
Compare that with the quarter: 391 million produced in the same time period for a ratio of 13 pennies for each quarter in circulation. And I’d bet that if you went home now and counted out that pile of change on your nightstand, the ratio of pennies to quarters would be even higher–quarters are useful, so if you’re like me you usually grab a few from the pile before you leave in the morning. Pennies, on the other hand, just accumulate.
Just like with quarters, people would spend a dollar coin rather than hoard it–so long as the corresponding bill isn’t an option. Pennies are over-produced because people never spend them–they end up in piggy banks, collection jars, and the bottom of desk drawers for years before they’re cashed in at Coinstar (always at a loss–the fact that this company can make a business out of coin hoarding proves how worthless the penny is).
Mint a dollar coin and eliminate production of the penny. Print more $2 bills in place of the single. Win-win.
The US Mint doesn’t have any control over it. They don’t make $1 bills or distribute anything to banks.
I posted a comparison of the current dollar coin to the quarter earlier this year. They’re not really very similar, or at least they’re not really much more similar than other coin pairs (the penny and dime are more similar).
And again, one coin in each pair (dollar and penny) has a plain edge, and the other (quarter and dime) has a reeded edge. Even blind people should be able to tell them apart with no trouble at all.