I like to use the Sackies. They’re particularly handy to take along to the pool, or while running - they don’t get soggy. Pool water will tarnish them in a hurry, though.
But the main reason I don’t have them is that I do all my banking at an ATM, and they don’t pass 'em out, and stores never give them back as change. Occasionally, I’ll walk into the bank and ask for a roll, but they look at me like I asked for butter or something, and usually have to go into the vault to get some.
The only place I see half dollars is at the craps tables.
They still make $2 bills? I thought they only made them in 1976 for the bicentennial. All the ones I have ever seen have 1976 on them where the year goes.
How do you get them? Just go to a bank and ask?
And as for “other weird stuff” that the mint makes, I think that was referring to those $10 .999 silver coins and other such oddities like that. They are techinically real money but aren’t really circulated, just collected, AFAIK.
At the store where I work, I get 1 or 2 a day in the register. They are circulating a bit. I ask for a few when I cash my paycheck too.
But I wanted to use one on the bus some time ago, after I dropped it into the slot the driver had no idea what it was and I had to have 4 or 5 people swear to him that it was U.S. currency and not a peso coin (I live by the Mexican border and some 10 peso coins are roughly the same size and color) before he would close the door and get going.
I wish the mint had done the 50 state designs on the obverse of the new dollars. That would have really peaked (or is that piqued) interest in the new dollar coins.
The Safeway that I shop at was actually giving them out as change for a while - so I made a point of shopping there more often, just to get them. Same with our Wal-Mart (except that even the siren call of Sackies isn’t enough to get me to shop THERE on a regular basis). I make a point of buying stamps at the machine at the Post Office just to get them, and I often go to the bank to get $2 bills.
Only once have I received a Sackie as change, and that was because I saw the coin lying in the girl’s change drawer and asked if I could get it as change. I’ve gotten a couple from the stamp machine at the post office, but that’s about it for me. The gold dollars are certainly not in widespread cirulation around here.
Here in the Payne household the Sackie’s are the Currency of the Realm in matters relating to, um, the tooth-fairy. My daughter loves getting them and probably wonders why the tooth fairy has so much better taste in currency than her own father…
I think it’s a great coin and I make a point of having several stashed away (in preparation for hockey accidents, etc.). I’ve always liked Canada’s “loonies” too - but the Canadians had the good sense to withdraw their $1 bills.
Thanks for the welcome, and let me say it’s great to stumble on this place. My regular online time consumer (www.tdiclub.com) has been down for a few days with hardware problems, but now I’ve doubled my daily reading burden.
I used to distribute them in my store as change, but customers would often return them and ask for currency.
I use them myself for tips (great for BellBoys and Luggage handlers) and I usually keep one or two in my pocket as “mad Money”
If the Govt would stop printing Bills they would get a lot more use. When I was in Canada, shopkeepers would show their “stash” of $1 and $2 Canadian Bills, but no one kept the Coins for collectibility.
The thing I hate is when a customer gives me a SBA. When I send it to the bank with a deposit, I color it with a Yellow Highlighter since the one time the bank credited four of them as Quarters!!! Being Yellow then the Bank can realize that it is a SBA.
Sid’s in Newport Beach is closed now, but when it was open, Sid had a policy of never giving out one-dollar bills as change. It was always two’s and SBA’s.
Maybe they’re not in circulation because paper dollars are still more convenient to use than the coins. 100 paper dollars take up less space than 100 coins that are slightly larger than a quarter. Much lighter too.
Lots of change is given out in paper dollars from what I recall while being a cashier at my father’s barbershop and on a good day his cash register would be overflowing with singles from all the transactions. I’d hate to see what the situation would be like if there were just dollar coins.
I give them to my neices for b-day and xmas presents, give them a roll instad of a check or notes. They think they’re cool, and they can go and spend them, thus getting them into circulation(my real motive). I’m doing my part!
