I’m under the impression that the deal is that people stuff multiple dollar bills under…ah, articles of clothing. Using 4 dollar bills is emotionally quite different from using one $5, I imagine.
Not that I know any of this from personal experience. (Actually, I don’t.)
I know you’re probably joking, but I’m intrigued by their plan to issue “Lady Liberty” designs for presidents who didn’t have wives while in office. (Jefferson was a widower by the time he became president.) I was wondering what they were going to do with James Buchanan’s term. Reading the release schedule, I notice that Tyler and Wilson both had two wives while in office. I wonder if they’re going to release two coins, or cram both women onto one coin somehow.
Another consideration on making the quarter into the lowest currency is the varying state sales taxes. Not a one taxes as high as 25%. Most are in the 4%-8% range.
If we were to make the quarter the lowest level of currency, then per dollar sales, the tax would be no less than 25%. Else the states would have to have complicated floors on their sales taxing (no sales tax on items under $10 in value, then a 5% sales tax thereafter, rounded up to the nearest quarter, or some such), or either the consumer or state will get significantly screwed on how tax is determined. Probably both.
There was a big stink in Maryland a few years back with a proposed sales tax reduction from 5% to 3%. I’d dread to see that across all of the states (that charge sales tax) simultaneously.
I don’t like pocket change, but I recognize it serves a number of useful purposes for which I’m perfectly willing to roll my accumulated coins every month or two.
This is just silly. First, tax is calculated on a total transaction basis, not a per unit basis. Second, taxes are already applied in many jurisdictions with fractional percentages, the fact that we don’t offer fractional pennies as coins doesn’t stop counties from having 7.375% sales tax.
If the quarter was the smallest coin, there would be nothing stopping the tax rate from being exactly what it is today.
I’m wholeheartedly in favor of not printing any more dollar bills and going to dollar coins exclusively, but… yech. These are some ugly-ass coins, if the illustrations are any indication. It’s almost an insult to the memory of Washington, Adams etc…
The Statue of Liberty on the reverse of each is also no great shakes.
I’ve got eight ones in my wallet right now.
That’s a hell of a lot of quarter size coins to fit in with my keys.
If I didn’t have eight ones, I would the next time a sped a twenty at Krogers.
Unless of course we do away with any bills smaller than a twenty; that would take care of the problem. 
Not joking. OK, partly joking.
But based on the experiences of – my friends, yeah, that’s the ticket – $1 is the standard amount to give. I’ve – my friends, yeah, that’s the ticket – never seen anyone give more than that. A good stripper can still pull in $20-40 in 15 minutes.
What’s worse is that most people apparently think they have an inborn Constitutional right that says the Mint can’t eliminate the dollar bill, or revamp the sizes and denominations. I don’t unerstand the attitude, because after all physical money is supposed to be merely a tool to faciliate commerce, and not something that should be rendered unchangeable by people’s reactionism.
They sure haven’t been able to float a dollar coin that anyone will use, have they? I bet that really nice looking statue of Liberty makes it work this time, though :rolleyes:
Washington looks like he’s fixin’ to shoot lasers beams out of his eyes.
Meh. You get used to it. When I moved to Canada I thought they were annoying at first. Now I only notice the difference when I’m saving loonies for laundry.
In a large-coin scenario, you wouldn’t have that many quarters. Most of them would be replaced by one-dollar or two-dollar coins, unless you were deliberately collecting quarters for laundry change.
You really need to take the paper out of circulation; it’s the only way this will work. When the “loonie” got introduced it was named such, not just because it had a “loon” on the tail side, but because a lot of people considered the very idea of a dollar coin to be lunatic. Of course now we have the “twoonie” also and there’s talk of the … “fivie?” (I’m sure we’ll think of something more appropriate at the time.)
Believe me, coins are the way to go. You’ll embrace it. But get the bills out of circulation!
The Hell I will.
Adams looks like Jon Lovitz wearing a silly mustache. I’m awaiting the Monroe coin, though: based on his portrait, I think he’s the ugliest President we’ve ever had.
Man, I went to do my pleading and begging at the local branch for dollar coins for the all-day parking meters- and after years of them having thirteen, or eight, or none, they have WHOLE ROLLS!
I don’t give a rat’s what they look like. I’m just thrilled they’re available.
When it’s 2 degrees and you’re feeding a meter, a dollar coin is worth at least two dollars.
The primary use of change in my life is to reduce the amount of change in my life. That is, I carry around some change specifically so I can pay $10.03 on a bill of $9.78, for instance, and get back a quarter instead of two dimes and two pennies. Less change, woo hoo!
Since purchase price and available change don’t always match up well, I sometimes come home with more change than I left with. So the total amount of change in my life doesn’t really change substantially – I’m just constantly waging war against the rising tide.
I like this idea, but I’d do it a little differently. I think we still need the dime; a quarter isn’t small enough for the smallest coin. Other than that I think $5 bill might still be better than a coin, and don’t see muich use for the $50. You really don’t need something between the $100 and $50 bills.
In Germany, in the 1970s, a couple of coins could be enough for a nice lunch. I used to get a big plate of spaghetti with mussels and a glass of Chianti, for about 7 marks. I usually paid with two 5-mark coins and got my three marks back in change–and each of those was enough for a beer at the bar attached to the dorms I was living in.
They do show a lack of detail. Maybe they were done by interns, since the pros prefer to spend their efforts on coins that will be issued more than 3 months.
I am a canadian.
Some time ago, we switched from dollar bills to dollar coins. We actually like em, they had a image of a Loon on one side and the tradition “Queen” on the other. We call 'em “Loonies”… When the $2 coin came out, we called em “toonies”…
One big issue is that while each individual dollar bill has a serial number, unique to it, the coins did not. And surprisingly there was a quiet scandal that the CDN Gov’t/Mint had “accidentally” produced a few million “Loonies” more than they should of. that could never happen with currency bearing unique serial numbers (well not as easily, anyway).
Still , when I was 18, two glasses of Draft beer cost 25 cents. It made me feel young again to be able to buy two glasses of beer for a mere coin… even if it was a “toonie”
Regards
FML