Coins will last a lifetime (1976 is the oldest coin in have in my pocket right now) whereas “paper” will last about 18 months and polymer around 8-10 years.
But the weight of coin is a pain.
I cry poor at the end of the pay cycle until I realise I have $50 worth of coin built up in the coin tray, so then I have to shlep around a ton of coin.
I hate coins.
Woo!
Thank god. I can’t STAND dollar coins. No longer will the government be the bitch of the vending machine lobby.
I like the Sackies, but as various people have pointed out, a pocket-full of change is a pain to carry around. Occasionally, I wish that I could use one in a vending machine (and that I had one to use: they’re very uncommon around here), but any time that I have more than a few coins in my pocket, I can’t wait to get rid of them.
You think it’s a pain when it’s in your pocket - they don’t make many pockets suitable for change in ladies clothing, so we have to carry those things around in a billfold or coin purse. It doesn’t take many before you can’t snap it shut anymore.
Um, don’t you have to do this with bills, too? Anyway, anyone who can’t tell the difference between these and quarters by feel is a little off. I find that they’re substantially heavier. And while they may be heavier than a bill (Ooog, I can’t carry around five coins! So heavy!) they take up less volume in your hand. It’s so convenient to be able to hold a stack of coins in between two fingers when I’m waiting in line to get my meal. Let me ask something: would anyone here be happier with a 25¢ bill, rather than the quarter? That means even less change that you’d have to carry around!
Me too! Down with the penny!
Well, that was around the time of the Great Silver Switcheroo, too. Silver coins went from being silver to silver sandwiches. I think that a big part of the problem is that people hoarded the silver coins (I think it’s 1964 and before).
I lived in Las Vegas for a while, and yes, I’ve seen and used Ike coins. There’s no mistaking THOSE suckers for quarters.
I think a major problem is that banks don’t give out the Sackies, unless specifically requested. One teller was astonished to learn that I didn’t want to buy a roll of Sackies, just wanted the odd dollars in coins, when I went to cash a check. She made quite a face at having to break open a roll of dollar coins.
To me the big problem with one dollar coins is that no cash drawers are made to accept them. Same thing with two dollar bills. I have asked for both “Sackies” and two dollar bills and the look from a bank teller is not a kind one. :rolleyes:
I have become somewhat used to dollar coins lately since I have been traveling to Canada quite a bit and really, they work fine. A Loonie is almost exactly the same size as a Sackie. I even like the Twonie, although it STILL looks like something you would use at Chuck E Cheeze’s to me ( see picture here).
A few months ago, I decided to do my little part to help get Sackies into circulation, and began asking for them at the bank. The problem is that the bank never seems to have any, so lately I’ve just given up. As it has been noted before, the U.S. Mint really needs to just stop printing dollar bills. This is what Canada did, and hey, suprise, suprise, people started using Loonies. Duh.
I remember the first time I ever rode the train from Newark to NYC, I gave a $20 and they gave me all my change in Sackie’s. My pockets were so weighed down it wasn’t even funny!
I say we all go ahead and just convert to pure gold. We can buy stuff in stores for gold, diamonds, pearls…no more paper and coin crap. Cold hard platinum, that’s what I’m talking about.
Or we can always go back to bartering for beads and horses.
I somehow managed to acquire a bicentennial half-dollar. Yeah, that’s right, a bicentennial. I never even knew they existed and have no idea how one got in my change.
As a Canadian, I’ve been using $1 and $2 coins for years and I’ve never understood the bitch against them. Actually, I’m waiting for the mint to issue a $5 coin 
The three largest U.S. coins got special bicentennial designs in 1975 and 1976. The bicentennial quarter is the most well-known. Lesser known is the bicentennial half-dollar and the bicentennial Ike dollar coin.
I went out to lunch with some coworkers. One of them had to leave early, so he gave me his share. It was $7.50, and this is how he paid: [ul][li]3 2 bills [*]1 "Sackie" [*]1 .50 piece [/ul][/li]He was always a bit of an odd fellow, so I wasn’t too surprised that he had that combination of currency with him.
I’d like to bring back the 50-cent coin in Canada too. Haven’t seen one in years… I’m not even sure whether it has a slang name, like ‘dime’, ‘quarter’ or ‘toonie’…
Apparently the Europeans are annoyed because they have eight coins to deal with on a regular basis: their equivalent of the four coins commonly in use in the USA (1c, 5c, 10c, and 20c), plus their equivalent of the high-denomination coins used in Canada, (1 euro and 2 euro)… plus a 2c and 50c coin.
Nitpick: In the US we don’t have a 20c coin, it is 25c.
A 2c coin, huh? That seems awfully useless.
I know. That’s why I said, ‘their equivalent of the four coins commonly in use in the USA’. 
Admittedly it could be clearer that the mentioned coin values are those of the European coins, not the US or Canadian coins.
I bbq’d this latest development over here. I’ve wanted to have small, high denomination coins ever since I lived in Germany for a year, in 1978, and learned how marvellously convenient it is to be able to actually buy significant items with the coins in one’s pocket. When I returned to America, even back then, you couldn’t really conveniently buy many things with coins, and it’s only gotten worse. At any rate, it looks as it the only solution for me, if I really care that much, is to go back to Europe, the land of sensible people who are not terrified of the slightest change.
Which brings me to your statement. The Ike dollars never were terribly popular, and they wouldn’t be today. They’re just too big.
A dollar is NOTHING! anymore. Well, OK, not nothing, but clearly not the kind of major purchasing denomination that it was when the first silver dollars were made back in 1783. Good lord, man, you can’t even mail three first-class letters with a dollar.
Most of the opponents to the Sackie say they “don’t like coins”; well yeah, I don’t like them either. I don’t like the fact that it takes about two handfuls of quarters to buy a burger, fries and a coke. I don’t like the fact that I have to remember to add them to whatever paper currency I offer in payment, or the clutch of coins jingling in my pocket will grow. And I don’t like coins that are damn near worthless.
Actually it was the vending machine industry that wanted a dollar coin. Maintaining the dollar bill acceptors was getting expensive, and, contrary to what some have said, most machines were already configured to accept Suzie’s, or at least, every vending machine I’ve encountered at my large office accepts dollar coins.
However, I think the armored delivery companies were resisting, so retailers never really got many to work with. Personally, I think the government would be well within its rights to just chuck the whole damn system and redesign all the coins, order banks and currency handling enterprises to adjust, and damn the bitching. As far as I’m concerned, the right to life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness doesn’t include the right to keep muddling along with the same kinds of coins we used in 1900, notwithstanding about 20-fold inflation since then.
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I’d love it too, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. The dollar’s now worth about a nickel compared to what it was in 1900; I think it could go down to a penny and people still won’t give up the dollar bill.