I don’t think the situation is very different. You can’t see the holes if you have a bunch of coins in a wallet. And Japanese coins are all very similar in size and thickness, except for the 500-yen and 1-yen coins. I agree the Suzie looks too similar to a quarter, but the Sackies are a different color, right? (It just occured to me that I’ve never seen a Sackie mysef, even though visited the US about 4 times since it’s been introduced.)
Incidentally, the 1-yen coin is probably the most geeky coin in the world. It’s made of aluminum and weighs exactly 1 gram.
Seriously guys, the cashless society is coming, I rarely carry any at all. The only exception to this being when I goto the pub or need to use vending machines. The 2 pound coin in the Uk was (I think) almost universally hated and the uptake was slow but it works now.
Debit Cards are accepted just about anywhere here now (the only rule being if it’s a little corner shop they may well charge a small surcharge if your purchase is under £5 and you wish to use a debit card) I can even buy goods valued at £1 or £2 in the local supermarket with plastic. Life is easier, I remember £1 notes and they were a pain, how hard is it really to carry a few quid/dollars, whatever in your pocket (or get one of them wallet things with a zipper). Using the above example it is far simpler to grab a couple of pound coins from my pocket than to arse about with pound notes from my wallet when in a hurry for a snifter after work in the pub.
A dollar is worth 63p ( as of 1/11/02 or 11/2/02 for our US friends), come on it’s a pathetic amount to use notes for.
Right, and for me, it’s easier and faster to pay for a $4 (or so) purchase with a few coins than it is to get out my debit card and swipe it. If they could key it in to my thumbprint, I’d be all set. Anyway, as for the cashless society coming, I hope and expect that it will get to the point where people who want to go cashless will be able to, while people who want to go traceless (ie, make all transactions in cash) will not be stigmatized.
It’s not fair to say that the American people have been given a choice, and overwhelmingly chosen the dollar bill. It’s like that commercial that Quizzno’s has beein airing recently, where a test subject chooses an ordinary sandwich over the superior Quizzno’s sandwich, which, however, is hazardously placed behind a little guillotine or on the other side of a busy highway. In the same way we’re all forced to choose dollar bills.
If you get change for a dollar, you might get four quarters, or various combinations of quarters, dimes, and nickels. Usually you can get all dimes or perhaps even nickels, if that’s what you want. If you’re getting your change from a person, especially at a bank, you can verbally choose how you want your change. But the dollar coin has never reached even this level of availability. In most situations you can’t ask for them, because clerks and tellers don’t have them. So how can anyone fairly say the public has overwhelmingly chosen paper bills? It’s not a case of the public soundly rejecting the dollar coin, because if the large number of people who wanted them could actually get them, you’s see a lot more of them in circulation.
<<So…my question, addressed to those of you who frequently use these types of vending machines, is whether you still get dollar coins in change, or if the dollars are basically all gone now. How about in cities like NY and Chicago, where people use metro vending machines more?>>
In San Francisco it is all quarters. The only place that gives change in dollar coins is at the post office. But, frankly, I would rather get either the quarters or dollar bills for change. I hate those dollar coins. Not very many vending machines take them, and when I go buy something at a store I just end up using dollar bills anyway. The coins are more difficult to keep track of and they are difficult to distinguish from quarters (when searching my pocket). However, I have often thought that vending machines should have an “options” button so one could have a choice of what type of change they want.
people took the coins and hoarded them, because they think they will be worth money someday, and didn’t spend them (they will be worth something…$1!!) America as a collective decided that the coins were a one year fad, and they better keep them in case they turn out to be worth millions. Plus they look like pirate treasure…
Evidently they already are worth something, since the Treasury is selling $25 rolls of them for $35 (cite). Maybe that was the objective all along.
Though if I could afford it I would seriously consider the bag of 2000 for $2195 as a last ditch effort to circulate them. It would take me a long time to spend 2000 dollar coins!
Well, they’re not worth more than $1 to me. Seriously, I just went down to the bank last week, gave them 2 20’s and a 10, and got two rolls back. If I could make more than $1 each on them, I’d be rich, since I can apparently get as many as I want.
I’ve heard of coin shops in the Midwest overcharging for them, but I don’t know why anyone would go to a coin shop to get vaild, currently circulating US currency.
You’re right, but that’s part of the whole lie. The lie is that these coins were amply available to all who wanted them, but we rejected them en masse. In reality they just never were that easy to find. My bank almost never had them, and if I asked for dollar coins they usually gave me SBA’s.
I have had no problem getting them. I just got a roll from my credit union last Friday afternoon. The teller said she didn’t get many requests for entire rolls, but she did get requests for the coins as part of the change she handed out. I did ask for sackies, not just dollar coins.
Hee hee, Lok, do you actually call them Sackies to the teller? I haven’t built up the courage yet; I just call them gold dollar coins.
javaman: I’m sorry. I didn’t realize they were that hard to find for some people. I just imagined that 95% of the people who wanted them didn’t want them enough to ask for them. I imagine this is true of 99% of the people who want bills as well.
When I was in London a few years ago I fell in love with the 1 pound coin.* I could reach into my pocket and tell immediately that I had one. With the dollar coin I can do the same, generally, but if I have a few quarters in there too I always double check. My point? Make a dollar coin that’s thicker.
*It was a brief, tempestuous affair which ended when I cheated with a franc.
Put them in an envelope and send them this way. I got pretty good at “flicking” pennies. Great fun (and not expensive). I can hit a target (by target I mean annoying person) from about 20 feet with enough force to cause a good sized red mark on the annoying person. That and it looks cool.
I have found some banks that put them in quarter rolls, which kind of annoys me. They still put 25 in and everything, but you have to slant them to make it fit.
Anyway, as for the cashless society coming, I hope and expect that it will get to the point where people who want to go cashless will be able to, while people who want to go traceless (ie, make all transactions in cash) will not be stigmatized.