The dollar coin is “worse” than a penny because it’s actually valuable, and therefore I can’t just ignore it. Get rid of the penny and nickel, though, and you have a deal :).
Silver dollars were cooler when they were actual silver–about $20 worth in today’s dollars. $20 in Sacagawea dollars weigh more than my cell phone.
Done! I’d actually go further: when we got rid of the half cent in 1857, the lowest denomination, the penny, was worth roughly what a quarter is today. Clearly, we don’t need the dime, either. In the interest of simplifying the system and anticipating future inflation, how about
50¢ coin (modelled on the current nickel, but copper-colored)
$1 coin (modelled on the current quarter)
$2 coin (modelled on the current dollar coin)
$5 bill
$20 bill (people don’t really use the $10 much, I’ve noticed)
$50 bill
I don’t see the need for anything larger given the ubiquity of credit and debit cards, which are only going to expand.
Purchases are rounded to the nearest half dollar. People who cannot handle that level of math are summarily executed by patriotic citizens in the interest of stamping out math phobia.
You could have a $5 Obama coin, a $1 Sacagawea, and some small change.
Easier than having pennies, in terms of the payout.
If they want a dollar coin to work it has to be two-toned so as to be very different from a quarter. Lots of countries have these bi-metalic coins. Just off the top of my head I have seen and used them in the Eurozone, Bahrain, Jordan, Hungary, UK, Malawi, South Africa, Canada and Turkey.
The Susan B and more recent $1 coins are just not distinct enough.
Have you noticed that for the last 14 years, the $1 coins are, in fact, very different from a quarter, in color, thickness, diameter, and images? Certainly as distinct as the dime is from the penny.
Even the old Susan B.s weren’t very much like a quarter if you kept in mind that such a thing existed. They were just much more like a quarter than they were like the old silver dollars (by which I mean the Eisenhower dollars: I know they weren’t silver, it’s just what we called them). They’re not objectively hard to distinguish.
A small coin purse is the solution to this problem - it stops the coins jingling, getting lost, wearing a hole in your pocket, etc, and it means you can pull all your pocket change out in a single movement. You’d have problems with paper money if you just shoved it into random pockets, instead of organising it in a wallet.
Again, a coin purse - dump coins into left palm, pick out the right ones, hand them over, dump coins back into purse.
That just sounds like simple unfamiliarity - unfamiliarity with the currency itself, and unfamiliarity with the habit of paying with change instead of breaking another note.
The only time I ever have more than £5 (the smallest note) in change is when I’ve been given more than a note’s worth of coins in change (i.e. if a shop was short of notes in the till).
You mean, dump coins into left palm, drop coins onto floor, stomp on them to prevent them from rolling under the counter 
Seriously, if a coin purse is big enough to hold more than a couple of coins I am quite sure I would find it inconvenient to drag in and out of my pocket, given all the other things that are already in there. Maybe I am just clumsy, but I don’t see it working for me. It is hard enough to get the keys out some times.
(and to the poster who suggested carrying things in the back pocket, I don’t ever carry anything back there…very uncomfortable when I sit down! Now it is true I don’t have lots of padding back there; other people’s mileage may indeed vary.)
A serious question for you coin buffs…why have paper money at all? Why not have fifty-euro coins, and ATMs that discharge seventy-five pounds in metal? Wouldn’t that be easier?
I know how to fix the “no bills for the strippers” problem. Have them wear garters with metal cups attached, about mid-thigh. Drop in coins. They wouldn’t be able to go upside down on the pole any more, but they could learn some new skills using the cups as maracas.
No, I definitely don’t mean that. This doesn’t happen.
I don’t tend to spill the coins because I never let them accumulate beyond a handful (I achieve this by paying in change whenever I have enough of it). If I resented using change, but still decided to carry it around, I’m certain I’d have problems.
<shrug> works fine for me. My coin purse is soft leather, about 10cm square with a spring-shut mouth, right now, it’s fairly empty, having 19 coins in it, total value £1,24
I carry my phone in my left front pocket (and nothing else, so the screen doesn’t get damaged), coin purse in right front pocket, wallet in right back pocket or right lower pocket if I’m wearing cargo shorts.
I seldom have to carry more than one key - (either the house key or the car key - never both)
That would be quite a drastic change (no pun intended), and I imagine I’d feel a little resistant to the idea. I’m not sure I’d be able to muster the strength of feeling about it that I’ve seen in this thread and elsewhere, concerning the dollar coin, however.
You want me to carry a purse?
F–k that.
And f–k that, too!
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My wallet has a little coin pouch. Right now it has nine coins in it, and it doesn’t alter the wallet’s dimensions appreciably. When I was looking to replace my old wallet, it was hard to find a nice one that had a coin pouch. I think there’s some weird cultural practice in America that you have to be flummoxed by the use of coins.
It’s like wearing a pink shirt - I’m man enough to pull it off. I do understand not everyone is sufficiently masculine.
I recall this one strip joint in West Texas back in the day. This one old codger shuffled up to the stage and tried to put a quarter in the lass’ G-string. She hollered at him: “I’m not a goddamned slot machine!”
Yeah, wimps delude themselves like that.
You guys realize you started throwing coins in a jar because they were worth so little. Make them worth more and you’ll actually start spending the coins.
See?
Sam always has something important to contribute to a conversation.
Haven’t you got something serious to argue about, like Gun Ownership, Abortion, Race Relations, Jews in the Military?
How about ladyboys in the military? That falls under almost each one of those topics.
Thailand and Hong Kong too.