I usually buy a roll of dollar coins when I cash my paycheck. I like the sackies and I wish they’d keep minting them.
I also personally think it’s time to phase out the dollar bill in favor of the coins. For one thing they’ll last a lot longer, and since dollars are used so often I don’t think there’ll be a real problem with people carrying around too many of them at one time.
Ya know-- for those of you bitching about ‘loose’ change, you can get a little hold-all to carry coins. Mine’s a little smaller than my wallet, made of leather, is embossed with Mad Ludwig’s castle on it. I’ve also got a little pouch with a zipper on it, made of fabric, smaller than the palm of my hand…
But I have to ask: does the US mint actually want American citizens to use dollar coins? I ask because this year the Canadian mint issued a new 50-cent piece to comemmorate the Queen’s Jubilee. They only issued 30 million, which is a little less than one for each Canuck.
And the mint knows that the general tendency for people is to hang on to the first new coin/bill they come across and keep it out of circulation, simply because it is a novelty.
It’s the second new coin that you spend…
So what’s wrong with finding a ten and a five, then you’d only get 3 sackies. I can’t quite believe that you prefer to break another $20 over using smaller bills when you have enough. Are fives and tens in short supply where you are, causing
It’s already here if you want it. The only time I ever spend coins or bills is when I stop for a burger or burrito at some fast food place. I guess there are a few other places as well. While I can buy movie tickets out of an ATM the food counters don’t take plastic. Or do they? I don’t buy food in theaters anyway. And most State and National parks don’t take it either. But I could certainly never touch the stuff again. But then I’d have a hard time filling my coin books.
Flymaster. While I agree that the vending industry has been in large part for the re-intorduction of a dollar coin starting in 1999, this doesn’t account for most European countries adopting it. I doubt that the vending industry there was responsible. It was simply economic.
As for your change falling out of your pockets…I think your clothes are cut strangely. While I have noticed that many pairs of my pants in the last few years seem to lend themselves to coins falling out , I don’t think it is a major drawback to ending bills.
Count me on the pro-bill side. I hate carrying around large amounts of change. Bills are so much more convenient. The Sackies are nice as a novelty, but it would be inconvenient to carry around several of them, whereas a dozen dollar bills can fit easily into my wallet and not encumber me at all.
Of course, I haven’t seen any Sackies in about a year, so this would seem to be a moot issue.
Nope, wrong, thank you for playing. Last longer, yes; easy to fold, no. Have you seen the Aussie money? I lived there for 6 months - great place, by the way - and you can’t fold that money for nothing. You’ll often get some that’s creased (how, I don’t know), but you really can’t fold it into convenient halves or fourths like you can the American greenback. They resist folding, you see, and basically just kind of roll. So you have a big roll/wad of plastic money in your pocket - it doesn’t lie flat by itself unless it’s a) not folded or b) you’ve a wallet where you can stack it.
The Aussie coins (and everywhere else that has sensible coins for smaller denominations) rock, however. They’re the best things I’ve ever seen. I’d give a lot for the US to do it too. And (I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again) the weight issue is non-existant. American coins are tiny. Really. Aussie coins snicker and laugh at American coins, then come over and beat them up.
Please, US, go to dollar coins. And make them appreciably different from quarters, for the love of Mike. Look at the loonies, toonies, Aussie dollar and British pound, for fuck’s sake. And shred the dollar bills - that’s the only way people will actually use the coins. I’ve seen one. One. One that was sent to my mother in an AOL CD holder. I’ve never gotten any as change.
Love them dollar coins.
Snicks
Which means I’m carrying around a pocketful of your athlete’s foot germs. Thanks man.
Yeah, you probably are. Not from me, though. I’ve never had athlete’s foot. Your money is, however, coated in layers of other filth and drugs. I don’t think anyone’s ever claimed that your bills were clean.
As an American i have the right to choose paper $1’s.
Oh, don’t be ridiculous, you do not. You have a right to choose it as long as the government recognizes it as legal tender, but your right is contingent on that recognition. The money isn’t yours; it’s the government’s. They don’t have an obligation to produce money in every form that every person wants. If I wanted a 43¢ coin, would they be obligated to mint and honor it, because it’s my right as an American?
Now, if everybody wants the $1 bill, then that does change things. But don’t claim that you have a right to it just because you want it.
See, i can vote in people who make the coinage laws. i can lobby to congress and get support for my cause. and i will pay entirely in paper money!!!
One word, Coinstar. Coinage in this country is so worthless that people pay to have someone else count it and change it into “real money” It’s a disgrace.
If we had $1 (and $2)coins, and got rid of the penny (and nickel for that matter), people might get back into the habit of making transactions with coinage. It used to be that one could buy breakfast, or other small things with coins alone. This gave incentive to keep coins in your pocket for quick transactions. Today, the only thing people often buy with coins is a newspaper.
Today, coins aren’t “real money” they’re change. People throw coins in jars and bottles because they are practially worthless. Every transaction means getting out bills anyway, so going into your pocket for change is an extra step, people don’t do it.
As a result, we likely have hundreds of millions or billions of dollars of coins sitting in jars, dead weight. That money could be active in the economy, but it isn’t.
Make coins “real money” again, and people will get back in the habit of using coins every day, keeping them out of jars and in the economy.
I think wallet design has something to do with it. Being Japanese I need - and have - a wallet with a zipper section for coins. When I use it in the US many people ask me where I got it, so I take it wallets like that are not be very common there. That must be a major reasons many Americans don’t like coins.
As for coins being more difficult to count - if you actually use your coins, you’ll rarely end up with more than 4. Most people can tell the difference between 1,2,3 and 4 instantly just by looking.
One problem, scr4, is that American coins, with the exception of pennies, look pretty much the same at first glance. It’s a lot easier to distinguish Japanese coins since they come in 4 different colors and have holed and unholed varieties.
Still, I don’t get you bill-only folks. [shrug]
Err… change “you” to “the”.
While I don’t really have much trouble distinguishing US coins, I do think that was a major shortcoming of the Suzie, that it looked too much like a quarter. As much as I hate to say it, Anthony just looks too much like Washington.
Susan B. Anthony looks like George Washington with a hair bun 
I didn’t mean to infer that the pound had sunk to a Third World value, though, like most other currencies, its value certainly did shrink dramatically within just a generation or two. Or another way of looking at it is that it shunk below the point at which most First World countries decide to ditch the paper note, which they did. Similarly, Germany stopped making the 5-mark note in the mid-70’s; I used to get them once in a while when I was living there, in 1977 and 1978, but they were rare. AT the time, 5 marks were worth about $2 American.
In one Fawlty Towers episode (early 70’s), someone says the nightly charge for a room with bath is about eight pounds plus VAT. I’m sure that would be ridiculously low today.
Go back about 9 years further, and Ringo Starr’s mother says that she first realized her Ritchie was making it in show business when she discovered “pound notes” on the top of his dresser. cite (print source, sorry).
The folks that run our company did their little part this year.
It’s our 100th anniversary this year. As part of the year-long corporate celebrations we’ve been doing, one of the little “gifts” we each got (all 3500 odd of us around the country) was a little wooden box containing a little balc velvet bag that contained 100 Sackies!
It’s one thing to get a $100 gift from your employer, but this one was really kind of neat. Now you’ve got 3500 more people around the US that are actually spending the coins.