Speaking of US dollar coins… I was just on the phone with my cousin in Florida, and I thought of this thread and mentioned that I’ve never seen a US “golden dollar” coin (Sacagawea or Presidents version). So I asked her to send me one. 
Perhaps. If so, then all the more reason for retailers to voluntarily adopt a penniless policy.
Except that (as I keep pointing out) there is the example of Australia, the world’s 13th largest economy, which has successfully used polymer bills since the 80s and has had an all-polymer-bills currency since 1995.
The average American might well be ignorant of anything that happens outside of the USA, but I’d expect that the people in charge of US currency have heard about Australian currency. Canada has licensed Australian polymer currency technology for their new bills, so lots of Americans will see them in action over the next few years. They work, the technology is mature and proven, and anyone who says otherwise is ignorant or lying.
I think you’re overestimating the number of Americans who will travel to Canada in the next few years and the response to the money by the small minority of Americans that will travel there. I’d guess that the average response will, if not outright apathy, be closer to “haha, look at this Monopoly crap” than “my stars, this banknote is incredibly resilient and cheap to manufacture, I must write my congressman and press him to introduce a bill on the matter forthwith.”
Fair point. Even so, there’ll be a lot more Americans going to Canada than to Australia.
I was trying to say that the “it won’t work here” attitude is harder to maintain if there’s an example of it working right next door. Canada is a lot more “real” than Australia to most Americans, I’d expect.
I assume that the US Treasury has its own standards (for durability and so forth) that are different from those of the Australian treasury department.
I feel the same way. I like dollar coins, but nobody ever gives them out in change. I’d actually have to physically go to a bank brank and go to a teller to get them, and that’s way too much of a hassle.
I’d reserve judgement until you’ve actually held the currency in your hand. It’s quite skookum, and it seems to me that it’s going to produce some natural envy.
On the other hand, our current banknotes already seem superior (if not as gee-whiz-we’re-living-in-the-future as the new line) to American currency and Americans still seem to prefer their dull monochromatic cotton bills, so who knows?
What does it mean, “skookum”?
It’s not the bills I like or envy, it’s the things I can buy with them.
Surely you guys have something to do besides look at your money.
Didn’t stop the US from not converting to metric though…
Skookum. A West Coast term derived from a former trade language of the Pacific Northwest. Basically means ‘good’. It’s not current where I live in Ontario, though.
Edit: A not-so-former trade language. They’re trying to revive it.
That’s ridiculous. If you genuinely believe US currency is used in ways that are different to how other developed-world currencies are used, lets see a cite.
Banknotes are used the same way everywhere. Polymer banknotes are used all over the world, they work very well, they’re cheaper and tougher than paper banknotes, and it’s been proven many times in many different countries. There are no special conditions that make them unusable in the USA.
There are political reasons why the US is resisting the change to polymer banknotes, but there is no practical reason.
From the PBS documentary series Nova, “Secrets of Making Money,” aired 22 October 1996:
“In redesigning the paper, there was one property that we were told could not change, and that is the feel and the stiffness and the texture that the public has become accustomed to. That stiffness, the crackle, is fundamental in detecting counterfeits in circulation. It is recognized by more bank tellers, by more merchants at the point of sale, than any other property of the paper.”
“All features for the new currency have to pass a series of grueling trials in the Bureau’s banknote torture chamber. Here, a sample hologram must face the dreaded crumpler. This contraption inflicts more damage than even the tightest fist. After just a single crumble, the hologram shows defeat. The Treasury posed a challenge to scientists at Flex Products in California: Create an image-shifting device, like a hologram, but one that can survive the crumpler. In their first attempt, they deposited thin layers of reflective and clear materials on plastic strips. This created a foil that changed color when struck by light from different angles. The foil—here stamped out as a Treasury Seal—would be hard to counterfeit. But the delicate foil would be crushed by the crumpler, so the Flex team had to come up with a new idea.”
Would polymer banknotes offer the same look and feel as the current ones? Would polymer banknotes survive the crumpler test?
Not exactly, no. But could Americans learn a new way to detect counterfeits, the same as Australians and millions of others? Yes, if they wanted to.
Sure they could change the American currency. But I was responding to Shakester’s request that I provide a cite as to how “US currency is used in ways that are different to how other developed-world currencies are used” and to elaborate on my statement that perhaps the standards used for currency paper may be different.
I still say it’s nonsense. Yes, polymer notes feel different to paper notes, but it’s completely ridiculous to claim that Americans wouldn’t be able to adapt to different-feeling banknotes.
Once again, my cite is Australia, which is a major developed-world economy, the lucky 13th largest economy in the world and the 5th most traded currency. Australia has had an all-polymer-notes currency since 1995. I seriously doubt the average American is really all that much stupider than the average Australian that he/she wouldn’t be able to get the hang of using money that feels a little different.
There is no valid practical reason - we have done it here in Australia. It’s been done. We did it. We ironed out the bugs for you. We finished the whole process 15 years ago.
The US Treasury Dept is either spectacularly insular, even by American standards of insularity, which are admittedly very high, or they’re making up bullshit excuses.
I think it’s actually become a point of pride, rather than embarrassment. We don’t have to change our currency, it’s perfect the way it is. Sure, our coins are pretty much worthless, and we have to replace our bills 3x as often, but that’s not a problem, it’s a feature.
It was interesting to see an ancient 1-yen “coin” at a museum in Tokyo. It looked like a big droplet of cold solder, but it was apparently pure silver.
My fond memories of Japan (mid-1990’s) don’t include 100- or 500- Yen bills. The denominations were 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500 in coins, then 1K, 5K, 10K, 100K in bills.
They seem like reasonable denominations with reasonable gaps between and a perfectly logical scheme (10^0, 10^1, 10^2 --oh, with half-steps as well:cool:). Seems like a good idea for The Colonies to do, as well. The source of the 25-cent two-bit piece was always a confounding to me, but at least it’s not a Ningy.
Regardless of the currency system, there’s always a need to represent N^0 – and by the way, they’re Cents in the Colonies; the Brits use Pennies and 'pence. As for weight issues, I always thought it was cool that the Japanese and Chinese coins included holes in the middle. Maybe the US (with more forgery problems) could make coins with holes and nano-chips or something like that.
—G$
Half-Penny, Two-Penny
Gold Krugerand
He was exceedingly rich
For such a young man
. . . .
Justice for Money
What Can you say?
We all know
It’s the American Way
. --James Young (Styx)
. Half-Penny, Two-Penny
. Paradise Theater
That is some bizarre circular reasoning. Of course they wouldn’t - that’s largely the point. The “crumple test” is only remotely useful in the absence of actual security features - the most basic of which offered by polymer notes being that you can’t make a reasonable facsimile of them by running paper through a laser printer or an offset press. How could anyone look at something like this and worry about retaining something as pitifully archaic as a “crumple test?”
The crumple test is for durability, not security. It requires that the note hold up to numerous small creases and large bending forces.
It may nevertheless be unfair to polymer banknotes–I suspect they are stiffer than paper, especially over time, and thus it may be difficult for a normal person to compress one into a tiny ball. The test would make more sense if it compressed a note based on a fixed maximum force rather than a fixed volume (or maybe it does this already; I don’t know).
Ah, I was misled by the opening of the quote - “In redesigning the paper, there was one property that we were told could not change, and that is the feel and the stiffness and the texture that the public has become accustomed to. That stiffness, the crackle, is fundamental in detecting counterfeits in circulation. It is recognized by more bank tellers, by more merchants at the point of sale, than any other property of the paper.” This still seems like an arbitrary quality to insist on retaining, as the imagined security benefit pales in comparison with those which might be gained by letting go of it.
At any rate, in actual circulation polymer banknotes last about four times longer than paper.