# George Washington dollar coin? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 28, 2016, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093 "2016-09-28T00:07:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093/61 "2016-09-29T19:28:30Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > Likewise, the zinc lobby opposes getting rid of the penny. That and they have those propaganda films as well. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/U1iCZpFMYd0/hqdefault.jpg "The Simpsons - A World Without Zinc") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1iCZpFMYd0) ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093/62 "2016-09-29T19:31:09Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Ten bits would be $1.25. A quarter is “two bits” because the new US dollars were analogized to the Spanish “pieces of eight” (reales), silver coins which were sometimes literally cut into halves, quarters, eighths. > > If we were to have a $2.50 coin again, we should call it a “quarter eagle.” Ten dollars to [the eagle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_(United_States_coin)). “Give me five bees for a quarter,” you’d say. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093/63 "2016-09-29T19:43:40Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > After all, control of the coinage has a major effect on the taxpayers – it was a major issue in several Presidential elections (see W J Bryant and the “Cross of Gold” speech). Not really a parallel situation. The modern equivalent to that would be a debate on the inflationary policies of the Federal Reserve. By comparison, whether the penny or dollar bill should be retired is …er … small change. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093/64 "2016-09-29T20:33:35Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > “Give me five bees for a quarter,” you’d say. And we tied onions to our belts 'cause it was snappy. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093/65 "2016-09-29T20:39:58Z")
> [@CoastalMaineiac](#): > > I believe the primary user of $1 coins is the vending machine industry. There’s no need for them in vending machines, either. I can’t exactly remember the last vending machine I saw that didn’t have a bill reader, but it must have been roughly 20 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093/66 "2016-09-29T22:45:39Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > There’s no need for them in vending machines, either. I can’t exactly remember the last vending machine I saw that didn’t have a bill reader, but it must have been roughly 20 years ago. at work we have vending machines which accept $5s and give change in dollar coins. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093/67 "2016-10-01T03:29:44Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > at work we have vending machines which accept $5s and give change in dollar coins. I’ve seen the same for vending machines for stamps and transit tickets. The reason they do this is because for machines, handling coins is much less difficult and problematic than handling bills. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093/68 "2016-10-01T14:05:47Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Dollar coins fall too easily out of strippers’ garter belts. If you don’t have cash or bills, then there’s a convenient and obvious place to swipe a credit card. ---
**Author:** ![Tatterdemalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/43a26b/32.png) [@Tatterdemalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatterdemalion)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093/69 "2016-10-01T14:20:17Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > If you don’t have cash or bills, then there’s a convenient and obvious place to swipe a credit card. It works even better with chip and pin. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093/70 "2016-10-05T02:39:16Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > There’s no need for them in vending machines, either. I can’t exactly remember the last vending machine I saw that didn’t have a bill reader, but it must have been roughly 20 years ago. Vending machines are the reason I carry dollar coins (four of them in my pocket right now). I’ve never yet had to fight with a machine because my dollar coin was too wrinkled, or faded, or dirty, or torn… ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093/71 "2016-10-05T03:04:36Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > Vending machines are the reason I carry dollar coins (four of them in my pocket right now). I’ve never yet had to fight with a machine because my dollar coin was too wrinkled, or faded, or dirty, or torn… Good point. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093/72 "2016-10-05T09:40:27Z")
> [@Common\_Tater](#): > > Small change is by now basically a nuisance, round up to the nearest $.10 and start issuing $5, $10 and $20 coins. Yes, when you look at the actual spending power of coins, it’s ridiculous that they haven’t been changed. It’s bad enough here in the UK, even though we have a £2 coin (currently worth slightly more than $2, and falling fast). In the US, the largest commonly circulating coin can buy essentially nothing. If we are going to persist with cash, we need to get back to the point where money is something you can actually use to buy things, not just an annoyance to be saved in a jar or thrown in a charity box. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093/73 "2016-10-05T17:59:16Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > Vending machines are the reason I carry dollar coins (four of them in my pocket right now). I’ve never yet had to fight with a machine because my dollar coin was too wrinkled, or faded, or dirty, or torn… As mentioned, Canada has $1 and $2 coins. I can’t think of a single vending machine in Canada that changes bills. The only bill changers are in places like car washes where you are expected to spend $5 to $10 and they spit out loonies ($1) for you to use in the individual coin-operated pressure wash statins. Incidentally, they are called loonies because the main design is a Loon (“Birds of Canada”) on the front. Maybe you guys could adopt the terminology and call your president coins “loonies” too - it fits. The $2 is a twoonie or toonie for lack of a better word. It has a polar bear on the one side. (Some wag suggested “Moonie”, since there’s the queen on the front with a bear behind.) It hope this explains Canada’s loonie-toonie money. We’ve also dropped the penny (as have NZ and Australia) since it’s basically useless. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093/74 "2016-10-05T20:08:45Z")
\ I still say that once Canada eventually starts minting $5 coins, they need to put an albatross on them, so you can continue the pattern with “goonies”. \ ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093/75 "2016-10-05T20:22:07Z")
**md2000** makes a good point. For all the talk about the vending machine lobby in the US, the bill reader devices are wonky. If the bill is worn, there’s a good chance the machine won’t accept it (heck, that was one arc of an entire Seinfeld episode!). Keeping the one means that every machine has to have two money receiving units, one for coins and one for bills. That must be a cost for the operators of vending machines. Going to loonies and toonies means that vending machines in Canada only have a coin mechanism, not a coin mechanism and a bill mechanism. That surely means a cost saving to the vending machine manufacturers and operators, doesn’t it? If the US were to abandon the one, then the vending machines with bill readers would gradually be obsolescent. Why isn’t that in the long-term interests of the machine makers and operators? ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093/76 "2016-10-05T20:47:56Z")
I guess you’re demonstrating that the vending machine lobby isn’t as powerful as the banknote-paper lobby. It should be noted that even if we get rid of the $1 bill, there will still be a need for bill acceptors. Grocery stores mostly have automated checkouts, and those have to take any denomination. And inflation will sooner or later make it necessary for ordinary vending machines to take $5 bills. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093/77 "2016-10-05T21:37:23Z")
> [@](#): > > And inflation will sooner or later make it necessary for ordinary vending machines to take $5 bills. Which is the point at which those should be replaced with coins, too. But vending-machine bill readers are far better than they were when they first came out. It used to be that you pretty much did need one fresh from the bank… but nowadays, I can’t remember when the last time was that a vending machine rejected a bill from me. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093/78 "2016-10-05T22:40:44Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Which is the point at which those should be replaced with coins, too. > > But vending-machine bill readers are far better than they were when they first came out. It used to be that you pretty much did need one fresh from the bank… but nowadays, I can’t remember when the last time was that a vending machine rejected a bill from me. I’ve had US bills rejected quite frequently; fortunately my wife used to fish US coins out of her work deposits (swap for Canadian) so we would go to the US with baggies of US change. Whenever I needed a $2 can of pop from the hotel, I would pay for it with nickels and dimes. Save the quarters for the NJ expressways… Yes, the bill unit is a far more complex mechanism. I can’t imagine it’s cheap compared to the coin unit. Fortunately, the US does not go in for regular major redesigns of their bills the way Canada has - that must be an added difficulty. I doubt the $1 bills persist due to any paper lobby; more likely, it’s a fear of the voter backlash. Canada has the advantage of being a dictatorship for 4 or 5 years when there’s a majority government, so they can ram changes down the throats of voters and rely on their short-term memory to forget the pain within 3 years. Simply changing thing like that results in some serious screaming from the public. The US electorate seems too sensitive about trivia. Another point is that I read somewhere that something like half or more of all US currency is in circulation overseas; apparently, counterfeiting is an even bigger problem there, but in a lot of those third world countries, $1 is a lot of money. When we travelled in Egypt, we took a huuuuge wad of $1 bills (fresh and new) for various uses. Since the smallest alternative currencies are Euros and GBP where the smallest denomination is a 5, these were the most convenient currency for tips. Researching another trip to Africa, I found one site suggested US currency printed before 2003 was not acceptable. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2016, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093/79 "2016-10-06T00:53:20Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > If the US were to abandon the one, then the vending machines with bill readers would gradually be obsolescent. Why isn’t that in the long-term interests of the machine makers and operators? There are sometimes separate makers for the bill-changer part and the coin-change part of vending machines. Thus part of the vending machine industry is strongly opposed to dollar coins. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2016, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093/80 "2016-10-06T02:25:08Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > Another point is that I read somewhere that something like half or more of all US currency is in circulation overseas; apparently, counterfeiting is an even bigger problem there, but in a lot of those third world countries, $1 is a lot of money. When we travelled in Egypt, we took a huuuuge wad of $1 bills (fresh and new) for various uses. Since the smallest alternative currencies are Euros and GBP where the smallest denomination is a 5, these were the most convenient currency for tips. Researching another trip to Africa, I found one site suggested US currency printed before 2003 was not acceptable. The figure I read some years ago was 70% of all US paper currency circulates outside the US. When we deployed to Cambodia in the late 90s our Uncle issued each of us $6000 in cash, many of the vendors were very adamant about crisp bills, wrinkles and folded corners especially, were not welcome for some reason. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/george-washington-dollar-coin/767093.md?page=5)