We still print $2 notes. Most people in the US don’t use them. But we still make them.
And we have had the same denominations of bills between $1 and $100 since 1861.
I have to agree with OxyMoron, though, that when it comes to what forms their money takes, Americans (ie, people from the USA) don’t look at the issue from a completely economic/pragmatic standpoint.
For instance, when the $5-$100 US bills were redesigned to make them easier for the handicapped to use and more difficult for the underhanded to counterfiet, the reaction I heard more than any other was “I don’t like the way it looks.”
As I’ve said before, the point of money is not to look good in your wallet. The point of money is to serve as a viable and useful medium for economic exchange (or something like that; I’m not an economist, for cripe’s sake).
Yes, but i don’t really care about saving money for printing. I want folding bills. The last thing i need is $50 in coins weighing me down as i run to the bus.
Exactly, Tars. I’ve been to Europe. I’ve carried 3 Mark coins (or whatever they were). They might even have been 5 Marks. Either way, I paid for most of my purchases with coins. And it was a GIANT hassle. I had money (real, valuable money) spilling out of my pockets when I sat down in cars. I had a quarter pound of metal in my pocket at all times, just to have small denominations for subway tickets and the like. It was impractical to carry change.
The fact is, I, for one, do NOT want to be carrying metal, regardless of the cost to the government to print it. And when there are other options, such as the polymer bills in use in Austrailia (and other places), there’s no reason to go to coins except to satisfy the vending lobby. And I don’t want to inconvenience myself just so that the owners of a coke machine down the street have to spend $200 less on a dollar bill reader.
Quoth Flymaster:
Flymaster, would you please quit thinking that the only people who want high-denomination coins are the “vending lobby”. (Though I don’t know much about politics, I have trouble seriously believing that vending machine lobbyists are powerful enough to single-handedly precipitate an economic overhaul of this magnitude.) There are plenty of people in this thread who want it too.
Seriously, I don’t see how you can say that bills are more convenient than coins. If I have $3.15 to give to a human clerk, then I would rather pay with five coins than with three bills and two coins. The latter takes two hands for me, and two hands for the clerk. I can hold five coins between my thumb and forefinger. If I give them bills first and put the coins on top, they slide off onto the counter. Relative to the ease of the coins, it’s a mess.
Achernar, I’ve provided cites in previous threads on this subject that you’re welcome to search for, but the fact is that the “vending lobby” really IS the main force behind the dollar coin. They always have been the #1 proponent, and they still are. They want it because it would make their lives easier, not ours.
As for your “convenience” arguemnt, may I assume that you are a woman, and therefore carry a purse? For those of us with only a wallet, the convenience of coins at the checkout counter is VASTLY outweighed by the inconvenience of having to carry a largeish amount of loose change in our pockets. If one is wearing reasonably loose jeans, it’s nearly impossible to sit down in a car without spilling all of your change out of your pockets.
Similarly, you can’t tuck $3 into your sock when you go out on a run if it’s in change form, and that $3 may come in handy when you’re thirsty 5 miles from home. Valuable change requires a significant increase in weight for most people’s pockets, and requires either a change purse or a regular pocketbook. Without one or the other of these things, it simply spills out, and doubly fast if one has a hole in their pocket. Bills don’t have these problems, and the problems they DO have can be easily solved with plastic currency.
Alright, I’ll look for the information on the vending lobby. But the dollar coin still does make my life easier.
I’m not a woman. Nor do I carry a purse. My back-left pocket holds my change. On a typical day I might have five pennies, three nickels, a dime, two quarters, six Sackies, and seven subway tokens. In one pocket. The only time they spill out is when I lay down; maybe it’s because I sit up straight, or maybe it’s because I don’t use a car. The net weight is 4.8 ounces, of which the dollar coins compose 1.7 oz. My back is hardly breaking from my coins weighing me down.
As for tucking $3 in your sock, this may be a dumb question, but why can’t you just use a $5 bill instead?
Because, if I were to bring a $5 bill, I’d get change 
And then I’d be stuck carrying that back.
And I’d say the fact that you don’t use a car is huge. The angle that most front seats of cars put your legs into (if you’re reasonably tall, anyway) means that any change in your front pockets is almost guaranteed to spill out, if you’re not wearing particularly tight pants.
Some cites, that I haven’t really read over all that much:
http://www.tinytalksvending.com/News/tinycoin.htm
http://www.replaymag.com/rchil300.htm
http://www.valleynewsonline.com/News/2002/0615/Viewpoints/092.html
http://www.ardmoreite.com/stories/060798/mon_mint.html
There’s plenty more such cites out there, but just search for “vending” on any of those pages and you’ll see who REALLY wants the dollar coin.
Gee… Those articles (well, except the last one) are kinda creepy. If I were the vending industry, I wouldn’t put those on the web. Anyway, even if the vending lobby is evil, I still like the coin.
And this is different from $3 how…?
Well, if the vending lobby hears how cars are mucking up their precious plan, they may lobby to abolish cars. Or men. 
Okay I’ll let someone else talk now.
Well, given that (a), most drinks cost about a dollar, I could use one of my 3 $1 bills to purchase a drink, and keep the other two in my sock for the run home. Or, worst case, I purchase a drink for 1.25, and I have to throw out the .75 in change that I have, or donate it to some cause that they have a jar for, or what have you. If I had a $5 bill, and that was the smallest bill, and I were to purchase a $1 drink, I’d be stuck with 4 $1 coins that I couldn’t easily run 5 miles back to my house with. That’s $4 lost, if I donate it or throw it away, or give it to some kid. Not that I mind donating money, mind you, but I’d rather not have to do it every day, just so I can carry a nice foldable bill rather than a jagged edged, or at the very least, awfully unbendy coin.
Granted, this situation isn’t going to manifest itself al that often exactly as I’ve described it, but think of all the times that you haven’t had any pockets, and were able to tuck a few bills into the waistband of your underwear, or inside your sock, or (in the case of the women reading this) into your bra. If you end up losing an extra $.35 that you tip to the bartender or whatever because of this, no big deal. If you lose $4 because you have no convenient way of transporting coins, then it IS a big deal.
Finally, I have to ask this: If you’re so set on coins for convenience, do you advocate the conversion of all bills to coins? If not, why not?
Hmm…I never made a point (b). Odd.
Lok,
The cynic part was just to say if everyone hates the coin, they'll be more likely to spend it RIGHTNOW in the vending machine. If they call them Susan B Albatrosses or whatever, want to get rid of them, and have the means there, maybe they buy extra Life Savers or whatever. The rest was just agreement.** Tars **,
The higher bills will still be around. You run around with $50 in singles much? I can see your conversations in bars:
** Sweet Young Thing**: “Is that a roll of bills in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”
** Tars **: “Uh, it’s $50 in singles…”
Boy, with all the arguements for coins it’s a wonder anyone invented paper bills at all. 
I prefer bills since I can count bills much faster then I can count coins. I have my stack folded in half and flip right through them just like a teller. Also a pack of paper comes out of my pockets much faster then any change I may have. I do typically have lots of ones on my person and appreciate the quietness I can enjoy with a folded pack when I’m out and about. I do not like sounding like C3PO when I happen to have a small supply of coins in my pocket.
And for change I typically never have any more then 10 coins. 4 pennies, 2 dimes a nickle and 3 quarters. Although I usually have half that. It’s elementary school mathmatics to always the proper amount of coins.
And I also think the whole debate is silly since it seems to me the trend is obvious. We are moving to a plastic society. Not just credit cards but also ones linked to bank accounts. What are those called, debit cards? Right now you can use them almost everywhere except fast food joints and a few other places. I imagine within a handful of years we will be a cashless society and those coinies here I assume will prefer that to any arguements you have now. Leaving any change we were to make any of your arguements valid for only a few years. And the few people, like myself, who enjoy the iconic nature of our money will be the only ones left using cash and coin with any regularity.
But why would you have to carry $50 in coins around? I don’t think anyone’s seriously advocating the elimination of paper money. We’d still have hundreds, fifties, twenties, tens, and fives. There’d be no reason you should have to carry more than, say, seven dollar coins for any length of time. That’s $7…enough to buy lunch with a buck or two left over. A paperback novel, maybe. Perhaps three rides on a big-city mass transit system.
It’s not a pirates’ booty of gold coins…I can’t think of any reason you’d have to carry that amount of coins around for any length of time, if you tend to buy anything at all while you’re out.
…or baggy pants!
Seriously, for any five-pocket traditional styled pair of jeans, like 501’s or something similar, doesn’t the high cut of the hip pocket pretty much prevent anything from falling out, even when the jeans are worn loose?
But I do hate slacks for that reason, and never wear them by choice.
I won’t speak for others, but I certainly don’t advocate the conversion of all bills to coins. There’s an upper limit of how much a coin should be worth. 100 years ago people didn’t like silver dollars because they were heavy and inconvenient.
But they evidently didn’t mind nickels, dimes, and quarters, which at the time were worth very roughly one, two, and five dollars respectively in terms of purchasing power.
I don’t know. It sounds rather contrived to me, whereas the situation I described about paying $3.15 with five coins happens to me a lot. I don’t think most people would give away the 75¢ like you would. I definitely think that you have a different mentality than most consumers, and I guess I can see that bills are more convenient for you. I hope the cashless society Osiris mentions comes about. Then it would be even easier; you’d only need one card for everything.
That doesn’t happen to me. I always have pockets. Am I abnormal in this regard? Where do people in your situation carry your keys and ID and ACLU bustcard?
I would like a $5 coin, but beyond that, I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t deal with large enough cash purchases often enough to have a good idea of how they should work. I get 20s from the ATM, and I break them as fast as I can. The little $3-$7 purchases that I make three times a day need to be quick and easy. However, if I bought a $200 monitor with cash, I wouldn’t mind taking my time and using both hands. So, I don’t know whether coins or bills would be better for large denominations, but I don’t feel the need to introduce coins like I do for the $1 denomination.
i generally have at least $10-20 in singles, just from breaking $20s or other high end bills, (i don’t right now because it is coming on the end of the month and i am putting of returning to the ATM for a new dose of cash) with plenty of 5s, 10s, and a few 20s. i also keep my change in my wallet. I can’t see women supporting dollar coins, as that would make purses super heavy.
It is easier to break twenties than to dig around getting 11.92 out of my wallet. That would result in three sackies, and repeat several times in a trip, suddenly i have 15 sackies. combine that with the other change and suddenly my wallet is heavy. Heavy wallet=annoying where as 15 singles would just make my wallet thicker, and give me the delusion that i have gobs o’ cash.