What coins, bills, do you want to use?

In My Humble Opinion
1

This is similar to a thread started by UncleBeer a million years ago, but different.

Taking currently used American currency (coins and bills), what do you prefer to use and what would you ditch? I’ll go first, thank you.

Lately I’ve been seeing pennies everywhere, except in people’s hands. They are on the sidewalk and *kids * don’t even pick them up anymore! Even a bunch of them is useless. It takes more effort to save, roll and trade them in than it’s worth. So, starting there:

IMNSHO:

THE PENNY:
We need to get rid of the penny. First step is to round everything to the nearest 10 cents for billing, calculations, etc. Stop making pannies and have them go the way of the half cent.

THE NICKLE
I know, the nickle, made of nickel… Same thing. It isn’t worth carrying around. But, kids still pick them up off the sidewalk, so mint 'em for another three years.

THE DIME
At last we’re getting sensible. It still buys,… uh, 6 minutes in a parking meter. And still gets a phone call in some places! (shocked the crap out of me!)

THE QUARTER
A sensible coin. Keep it.

THE HALF DOLLAR
Redundant, but good to give kids for their teeth.

THE Saca, Saja, uh, GOLDEN DOLLAR COIN.
I love it. It makes sense. About the size of a quarter, but 4x the value. Promote it.

THE FIVE DOLLAR COIN
Oooohhhhh! I can’t wait. About the size of a half dollar (perhaps slightly larger? or smaller?) A handy piece of currency. George? It could have your dad’s picture on it… (later, that is,).

THE TEN DOLLAR COIN
A bit premature. Maybe to celebrate 2010? Inflation might make it worthwhile by that time.

THE DOLLAR BILL
A dirty, crumpled, slightly worthless piece of paper. I refuse them in change now, and take quarters or dollar coins instead. Or ensure my change is in fives and up. They are annoying as hell.

THE FIVER
The absolute minimum in paper money.

THE TEN$
Nice, handy piece of change :slight_smile:

THE TWENTY
Also, good.

THE FIFTY
Wish more places accepted them.

THE HUNDRED
I always stash at least 3 in a hidden spot, just in case. They should be more commonly used.

THE FIVE HUNDRED
Issue it for general circulation.

Well, there’s my 2 cents to five big ones. What do y’all think?

For your use:

PENNY
NICKLE
DIME
QUARTER
HALF
DOLLAR COIN
$5 COIN
$10 COIN

$1 BILL
$5 BILL
$10 BILL
$20 BILL
$50 BILL
$100 BILL
$500 BILL

Other Thoughts:

2

Not really. 75% copper.

Name three cities that you can make a 10 cent call from a pay phone.

Talk to the Republicans. Nixon called them in, supposedly to combat drug dealing. You’re fighting a losing battle here.

3

Where do you think you are? Great debates?
Get real.

If you don’t have an opinion, we’re not interested in it.

4

I hate dollar coins. They’re bulky, they jingle, and they certainly don’t fit in my wallet.

Pennies and nickles are also free to die a slow, painful, melty death.

Dollar bills are good for tips and happy hour.

5

No dollar bill? Won’t somebody, please think of the strippers?

I throw away pennies. Vending machines at work take nickels, and 20 ounce sodas are $1.15, so I get use out of them.

-lv

6

I always think of the strippers, which is why I tip them with $2 bills. I love 'em, everyone else (except the strippers) hate 'em.

7

NZ got rid of one and two cent coins a few years back. Best thing they ever did! Who needs all that useless crap gathering dust.

Second best thing was getting rid of one and two dollar notes. You can buy bugger all for one dollar so it shouldn’t be a note. You think you are poor then you go through your jeans pocket thinking it’s only coins and find you have $10 in $1’s and $2’s. A splendid feeling.

Third best thing was the funky plastic note. You can send those suckers through a heavy duty cycle on the washing machine and they come out not even wrinkled.

8

All in all, American banknotes and coins are pig-ugly. Even the new twenty doesn’t make the grade. We need a complete makeover.

9

Not ugly maybe, just all GREEN…I feel sorry for tourists, pissed people and people in dim lighting. Surely a different colour for a different denomination makes sense?

10

Precisely. They would make much more if the smallest bill was the 5 $ one.

11

If I can spend it, I will use it. I pick all coins up off the sidewalk. When I have a bag of pennies, I go to the Coinstar at the local ShopRite and put them in. That machine has bought me food on some bad weeks. As long as Coinstars are in grocerys, the penny will stay in existance.

I do think that bills should have bar codes so they can be flashed across scanners. Someone should have thought about that when they were redesigning them.

12

I like the gold Sacajawea dollars. Plus, I was miffed recently to find out that $500 bills are no longer available. Come on, now.

13

Not sure about the US, but I don’t recall seeing a five rappen (cent) coin in Switzerland for months. I swear those things are on their way out - everything is rounded off to the nearest ten. Time for them to join the one rappen coin in the rare coin market.

We also have the coolest coin in the world here - the mighty five franc. They are worth a whopping $3.8 and has a collosal 3cm diameter to match (I have one by the computer, rich man that I am). I feel like a pirate smuggling bullions with those things lining my pockets.

Britain really ought to get rid of the bloody copper coins, seemingly dirtiest coins in the world. Worst of all, you’re guaranteed one with every purchase because of the inane £x.99 pricing tradition. Whatever law or idea is responsible for this outrage needs to go!

On a tangent, I just had a laugh when I saw a fantasy design for a British Euro Coin:

http://www.eurocoins.co.uk/ (near the bottom)

There’s something vaguely… imperial… about that.

14

I would say to get rid of the pennies, except that I LOVE elongated coins/squished pennies. Some machines will squish dimes or nickels (note correct spelling of the coin, it’s the same spelling as the metal) but most machines only squish pennies.

My husband has a huge vase that he fills with pennies, and when I don’t have any craft in progress, I’ll roll pennies while I watch TV. I take out the older cents (1981 and earlier) as they make better squished pennies, and of course I do watch for wheatbacks, though I can’t remember the last time I found a wheatback in pocket change.

I love the IDEA of a dollar coin, but frankly, the Sackie doesn’t do much for me. It’s a great coin when it’s new, but it quickly dulls and looks like an oversized copper cent. I was very happy to get my first few Sackies, but they disappointed me when they changed color so very quickly. On the other hand, I tend to spend them more readily now, so maybe the color change is a good thing.

15

Squished pennies are the best souvenirs ever!

I got a wheat penny in change within the last week I think. I know it was recent.

I like Sackies and Suzie Bs but the only time I ever get them is when I buy stamps from the vending machine at the post office. One of the bars where I used to drink was near a parking garage with dollar coin meters so they were handy for that (100 minutes per Sackie, best deal in town); now it turns out a bartender at another bar I drink at collects dollar coins so I tip him with them.

16

When I was in the US in February I noticed how quickly I accumulated wads of $1 notes. I kept wondering why the US didn’t have a $2 note. From previous posts I gather that the $2 note does exist, so I think there certainly should be more of them in circulation.

Also, the $1 notes were always old and tattered. Perhaps the US should consider polymer notes like we have in Australia. They don’t wear out as quickly.

17

I work at a vending machine company. In addition to product retail we provide some customers with bill changers, some of which dispense one-dollar coin (the Sackies and SBA are interchangable as far as the machines go).

We get maybe half of the dollar coin we send out back in vending receipts. We’re net exporters of maybe $2500 dollars worth of dollar coin a week. Someone’s using it all, but I virtually never receive dollar coins as change.

18

Forgot about them.
All: If you got an opinion one way or the other on this one, please add it.

As for me, I’d rather tip strippers with fivers. I got no use for $1s or $2s.

19

Americans are notoriously conservative about our currency and coins. We don’t like it when our money changes, usually. Many people love the new States Quarters (for you non US people, the government mint is putting out commemorative quarters for each state, at the rate of five states a year, the obverse of the quarter is the same as always, but the reverse has a special state design), and are trying to collect at least one quarter of each state. Several companies have put out folders for the express purpose of giving us a place to stash and display our collection.

We do have two dollar bills, but I really can’t say that they’re in circulation. They are almost never given out in bank withdrawals unless one specifically asks for them, and most retail establishments won’t give them out as change, either. Most register drawers don’t even have a slot for the two dollar bill, and it’s usually thrown under the drawer with the larger bills, to become part of the day’s deposit instead of being given back out as change. It used to be that two dollar bills were considered unlucky, and when you received one, you were supposed to tear off a corner of it. The person who got a $2 with all four corners torn off was supposed to tear up the whole bill, which WAS unlucky!

Polymer notes would seem to be the logical solution, but we don’t react logically to our money. If we did, we’d have ditched the penny and the dollar bill, and switched to dollar coins and actually USE two dollar bills.

I’ve never patronized strippers, so I can’t talk about their reaction to bills of any denomination.

20

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I want those big, bright yellow, and utterly featureless gold coins you see on cartoons. Like the ones that Scrooge McDuck liked to swim in.

They only had one denomination, though…for purchases costing more than about five of them, you had to use either the “Fist sized bag of coins with a ‘' printed on it," or the "Soccer-ball sized bag of coins with a '’ painted on it.”

The latter sometimes contained sundry Emeralds, Rubies, or strings of pearls. Probably just for color.