I…I just felt my paradigm sticking there, when you mentioned doing away with 1, 2 and 5 cent coins, calm kiwi. How would we live without our pennies and nickels? Like you say, probably just fine. It’s just not what I’m used to.
<Montgomery Burns>
Excellent.
</Montgomery Burns>
That’s essentially ho it works. My euro cents coins tend to pile up, as I empty my pocket in the evening, but my 1 € and 2€ dissapear quickly when I buy a paper, a coffee, bread, etc… I rarely have more than 2 or 3 of them in my pocket.
here’s the current content of my pocket :
Four 1 cent coins
Two 5 cents coins
Three 10 cents coin
One 20 cents coin
One 50 cents coin
Two 1 € coin
And besides that, I recently made rolls with all the change that I had accumulated when emptying my pockets. they’re right here, so here’s the list :
1 cent : roughly 80
2 cents : 100
5 cents : 100
10 cents : roughly 170
20 cents roughly 60
50 cents, 1 €, 2 € : none, because I spend them…
And I use my euro coins in the laundry machines too 
If you keep the quarter, you cant just do away with the penny and nickel while hanging on to the dime, can you?
For example:
Price: .10
Pay: .25
Change Back: $.15
If you keep the dime and round every transaction to the nearest .10, you won't have any nickels or pennies to make change. You need to abolish every coin less than .25 for it to work, and round all transactions to the nearest $.25.
If you did away with all those worthless coins, I doubt people would have much problem accepting half-dollar and dollar coins.
I really liked the idea of the new one dollar coins when they were reintroduced.
When I lived in Houston, I had to take the tollroad to work everyday and I never bothered to get a toll pass, so I had to pay in coins every day. $1 at the big booths (now 1.25, but 2 coins are still easier than 5) and .25 or .50 to get off, depending on which exit I used. I kept trying to get the one dollar coins but no one ever had them. It’s much easier to hit those baskets with a single coin than with 4. Also, it was a lot easier to glance into my purse and see if I had enough change for the week if I had the dollar coins instead of quarters. The tollbooth was actually distributing them, but unless I was going through a non-peak time (in Houston, that’s between about 9PM and 4AM, I would have to wait in a long line to do that.
Also- the tollbooth never miscounts the one dollar bill, and sometimes it seems to miss quarters thrown in the basket. This makes you have to dig for another quarter, holding up everyone behind you…
Now that’s something I hadn’t thought of… I can’t imagine the wad of quarters you must have to carry around to park at a meter in some of the pricier cities for parking… you must be able to choke a horse with them. There’s places here where it’s $2.50 an hour at peak. Without twonies and loonies, by the time you’ve finished feeding in your coins, your time has expired!
welll duh. she gets a raise obviously!
(I can’t believe I commented on this! :rolleyes: )
How expensive would it be if the dollar coin were actually gold-plated? Will the plating wear away or will it stay in place for long enough? It wouldn’t tarnish, and I think it would be attractive.
Nope. You just have to abolish the 25 cents coin, and you can keep lower denominations.
Are .25 coins (or 2,5, or 25, or 250, depending on the value of the local currency) in use in many countries? Wouldn’t you think it’s weird to have 25 $ bills, for instance? Why not get rid of this denomination?
…but the lower demoninations are the problem.
Heh, they’re probably the most widely used coin in this country. Most stuff you can get from vending machines tend to either be in amounts payable entirely with quarters, or mostly quarters and one dime (ie: 85 cent candy bars). You get rid of the quarters and keep the smaller change, and what you’ve done is created a HUGE headache, because instead of a 75 cent can of Diet Coke taking three quarters, it now takes 7 dimes and a nickle, or some other odd mix of coins.
When the 1 and 2 cent coin was abolished NZ resorted to “Swedish rounding”. Basicaly numbers smaller then three were rounded down to the zero. Numbers larger then 7 were rounded to the next zero.
Now the 5 cent is going presume that less then 5 goes to zero and more then 5 goes to 10.
A wacky new form of tax 
I have a theory that the reason the two-dollar bill, the half dollar, the Eisenhower dollar, Anthony dollar, and the “Sackie” dollar didn’t catch on is that US merchants are reluctant to use them because all the compartments in cash register drawers are taken up and they don’t want to get new drawers (or alter their present drawers). Most people get their small bills and coins when they buy things and get chage. If there were an extra little compartment in those drawers, the merchants would probable use the dollar coin (they’d be easier to take out and put in, and they don’t stick together as bills sometimes do, making them easier to count). And if your local supermarket was always giving you Sackies you’d probably start using them and get used to it. For decades those drawers have never had to change.
The Congressman in the article about the proposed new dollar is wrong. The new quarters with states on them were put in circulation not because of the novelty of the images; people use them because that’s what they get in change. They don’t require a separate compartment from the old quarters. So I predict the proposed new dollar will go nowhere until they stop the penny and cash registers will have an empty compartment. And if they stopped the one-dollar bill, merchants would probably start using the two-dollar bill, then people would be getting them in change and using them (and be forced to use dollar coins). So we don’t need a new one. Just use the two we have.
The $2 bill died because it just isn’t very useful. It’s more of a novelty than a serious unit of currency. (At least, it’s always been that way during my lifetime.) Same for the half-dollar; it’s just not a very useful denomination, and the fact that the coin was big and heavy made its problems worse.
When I was in the US last year I kept wishing that there was a $2 note because I got so sick of the way that the $1 ones kept building up in my wallet.
(sorry for the continuing hijack)
Er, I am a stripper, and I’ve never known a single stripper I’ve ever worked with to ever mistake a 2 for a 20, at least not in the clubs I work in. If there’s one thing even a stupid stripper knows (and lord knows I work with a few of them), it’s money. Just because you don’t think she’s looking at the denomination doesn’t mean she isn’t.
She watched you take it out of your wallet, dear, and we have eyes of the eagle when it comes to denominations. If you handed her multiple bills, she’s counting it the second she gets one step from the table if not before. Every dancer gets stiffed by some incredibly lame cheapa*s once, and it’s not a lesson soon forgotten.
I realize some guys think it’s cool or amusing to try and stiff dancers, but it’s really not. In case you didn’t know this (and I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you don’t) we pay the club to work there, not the other way around. When you stiff a dancer, it’s stealing, and no different than shoplifting from an independent store owner, or having a contractor do repair/remodelling work on your house and deciding to not pay him.
But I do agree, 2 dollar bills are nice for stage tipping, if you don’t want to use 5s. I always get a little chuckle when a guy tips me a 2 dollar bill. It’s not exactly unique, but it’s uncommon enough to usually be noticed and be considered a novelty. A single dollar bill tip in a high-rent gentlemen’s club will generally get you the “cheapskate” label.
/continued hijack off
I don’t know how we can determine the usefulness of a bill, considering they’re all the same physical size. Do you mean to say that not that many things cost around $2, while many things do cost around $1 and $5?
I would use $2 dollar bills if someone gave them to me (as change). In fact, I got one once (I can’t remember where from) and used it almost immediately. It was just as useful as two $1 bills, and I used it quite seriously.
I went to the supermarket and decided to check into my theory. After making a puchase and getting my change, and while the register drawer was still open:
ME: Do you ever get any $2 dollar bills?
CASHIER: (Looking at me as though I was asking him a trick question) Oh,
um, no, we don’t really get any of those.
ME: Well, if you did get one, where would you put it? (Pointing to the
drawer)
CASHIER: (Eying me suspiciously, then looking at the drawer, suddenly getting inspired.)There. (Pointing to the place where they put checks, cupons, etc., all no currency.)
ME: You mean with the checks?
CASHIER: Yeah.
ME: Do you ever get any dollar coins?
CAHSIER: (Now he evidently thinks I’m an undercover personnel manager there to spy on him.) No, we don’t really get those.
ME: Never?
CASHIER: No.
ME: Well, if you did, where would you put it?
CASHIER: There.
ME: Same place?
CASHIER: Yeah.
I frowned, as though to say “Isn’t that problematic?”
ME: Well, if you had $2 bills, would you give them to me for change?
CASHIER: (Thinking it’s another trap, hesitates.)
ME: If I asked you, “Please give me five $2 bills instead of a ten. I prefer them. I find them quite useful.” Would you do that?
CASHIER: Sure. No problem.
ME: One more thing. Could you ask your manager to have $2 bills tomorrow? I’ll come by about this time. Could you do that for me?
CASHIER: Well, uh, I can try. I don’t know.
ME: Thank you. I’ll see you then.
I’m going to the bank tomorrow, so I’ll get as many $2 bills as possible. From now on, I’m going to see my new friend the Cashier whenever I buy something there. If he doesn’t have $2 bills, I will make my purchase entirely with $2 bills. And maybe I’ll throw in a few Susan Bs.
There was a story I heard somewhere about a guy who tried to pay for his meal at a Taco Bell with a $2 and they refused to accept it because they thought it was fake…
Ahh, found it: http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/2-at-Taco-Bell.html
Yeah, I thought about that incident; this guy just thought I was some crazy person obsessed with $2 dollar bills. Someday he’ll recognize the legitimacy of my theory. Someday…
To continue the hijack, how common is it to get a $2? I only tip with $2s (AFAIK I’m the only one in my area who does) and the guys I tip certainly seem appreciative, and disappointed if I happen to be out (although I imagine their disappointment largely stems from not getting double a standard tip for the same effort like they usually do).