I seem to recall getting a Canadian 50-cent piece from a bank decades ago, out of curiosity. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen one in the wild.
You do you, but if we’re gonna have cash at all, I’d like to get to where the idea of a pocketful of heavy metal tokens is a total WTF. One US quarter weighs the same as 6 US paper dollar bills. Which could have a value as high as $600. Max value with min weight; that’s my goal.
While were at it, shrink the size of paper currency to be the same size as a credit card. And switch to Tyvek like civilized countries use. Then about 50 bills would weigh the same as a single quarter.
Ted’s Montana Grill did this for years. I don’t generally pay cash there, so no idea if they still do it.
It’s now law here in Florida:
That’s a nutty clickbait headline. And a nutty claim in there; one paragraph says retailers can choose to round up or down to the nearest nickel, while another paragraph explains the statute’s required rounding which is a completely fair method and not “retailers may round up whenever they want”.
If that part of the article is to be believed, the only optional aspect of the law for retailers is “round per the fair regulation or don’t round at all”.
Yeah, that is the issue whenever getting rid of the penny is discussed, people thinking every item will be rounded off up, so buying ten $1.96 items will cost you 40 cents. Not true. It is the final price, after sales tax, etc that will be rounded.
That is why Congress didnt move on getting rid of the penny- ignorance and bad media articles.
Well, that and lobbying from the zinc industry. Seriously; the zinc blanks used to make pennies and nickels are supplied by a company called Artazn, which paid for an astroturf campaign called Americans for Common Cents that has worked against rationalizing American coins for decades.
Good point- always follow the money.
That was not the issue at all.
Whoever or whatever wrote the article simply didn’t comprehend the legislation theyvwere writing about. And didn’t notice when different parts of the article contradicted one another.
I like $2 bills.
There is one story, possibly not actually true, about a man being arrested for buying something with a $2 bill about 30 or so years ago. The store manager and the police all thought that the $2 bill was counterfeit.
They held him at the police station and waited for the Secret Service to show up and examine the bill. When he did, he looked at it and asked why they called him to look at a legitimate bill.
No, it’s apparently true and it was twenty years ago.
That sure looks like the story I was thinking about.
Thanks
When the Kennedy half came out it circulated freely for a while. I once got a $2 bill in change in the US. They were common in western Canada, but not in the east. As for dollar coins a looong time ago there was a gay 90s themed ice cream parlor on the road leading in to Wilmington from the north that gave out real silver dollars in change.
in Canada the cent is still legal, though not minted any more, and if your total bill (with all taxes) ends in a 1, 2, 6, or 7, it is rounded down while 3,4,8,9 are rounded up. But if you have pennies and want to pay the exact amount, you are free to. Now if the 5 c. coin (not called a nickel) is eliminated, no such obvious rounding works if your bill ends in a 5. Also then you cannot change a quarter, so maybe the 10 c. should also go. Since most bills are paid with credit cards, it should not make much of a difference, but people will still scream.
What I don’t get about the supposed elimination of the penny is that retailers are already seeing a shortage of them, which is one reason some are voluntarily rounding to the nearest five cents. But, Googling, there are something like 100-300 billion pennies in circulation. (The estimates vary and no one knows for sure.) That sure sounds like a lot of pennies. So why the shortages? Are that many people just letting their pennies pile up at home or just throwing them away?
In part. Also, the Fed has largely stopped distributing pennies back to banks.
https://www.cato.org/blog/quiet-way-fed-creating-coin-shortage
I’ve received three two-dollar bills in change, all from used book sellers at SF conventions.
It’s always seemed to me that was an argument from ignorance and lack of imagination.
Aus used (largely) “English” (4x8) and “American” (5x5) cash drawers, but now (often) 5x8 cash drawers ($5,10,20,50,100; 5c,10,20,50,$1,2,x,x) and (even less common) “European” cash drawers (vertical notes),
You can’t use vertical notes because all your notes look the same, but the point is, lots of different cash drawers in use, and nobody minding much.
(4 slots for notes was never enough, but the top denomination never needed it’s own slot)
– and yes, I get $2 and $1 and 50c coins all the time here in Aus. 
The 50c is distinct, and use a 5x5 cash drawer can go in with one of the other coins, or (coloured notes), $100 can be stacked under one of the other notes.
Goodson Fliptop Cash Drawer with Removable Cable - Melbourne Office Supplies
Kaylasmom and I used to frequent a Costa Mesa steakhouse called Sid’s (don’t tell no one). One of Sid’s policies was to never give one-dollar bills in change. It was always dollar coins and twos.
I have seen five gallon water bottles full of pennies, so yeah. That is at least 40000 pennies.
Five slots have been standard in America for a long time, I have an old cash box from the late 1890s with five slots. Coins- pennies, nickels, dime, quarters- and dollars.
Bills? $1, $5, $10, $20. There is room for a dollar coin or a two dollar bill.
I’ve heard of such things but I don’t know why people would accumulate such quantities. (Googling, 40,000 pennies would weigh over 200 pounds.) I’d take them to the Coinstar machine before it ever got that bad.
Once they get half full, they are hard to lift (as you pointed out), and once you get that far, there is a desire to see if you can finish filling the bottle. Mind you, I dont do that (I do have a few dozen Ike dollars as I like the way they feel). People collect bottlecaps too.
But here-
and if you search Google images, I can see picture after picture of this. That is where all the pennies are- Okay, probably not all, but a good number of them.