This might not help you guys, since the single isn’t being taken out of circulation. But when we Canucks phased out the two-dollar bill in exchange for the twonie, some genius manufactured little trays to go in the two-dollar-bill space in the cash register.
Two-dollar bills were used in general circulation in Canada, as much as any other bill, unlike the US. What I want to know is, if our cash registers had $2 trays, why didn’t yours?
Once when I was a kid, I passed a $2 bill at the corner market and the unattentive clerk gave me change for a $20. These days when I get $2 bills, I don’t get to spend them at all because my wife hoards them (along with half dollars and Susan B’s).
This cop was a lot smarter than the Georgia sheriff who locked up two tourists (briefly) for trying to pay for their gas with funny money. (The tourists were Canadian and the cash was too.)
Work is the curse of the drinking classes. (Oscar Wilde)
“I must leave this planet, if only for an hour.” – Antoine de St. Exupéry
Are you a turtle?
bibliophage: This cop was a lot smarter than the Georgia sheriff who locked up two tourists (briefly) for trying to pay for their gas with funny money. (The tourists were Canadian and the cash was too.)
It’s strange how Canadian merchants will take US money and give you the exchange rate for it, but US merchants won’t.
My first trip to Canada was in 1981. Just before I came back, I had to break a US $20 and got back Canadian bills. Once over the border, we stopped at a convenience store about 1/10 mile from the border stations. I tried to pay with some of my remaining Canadian currency. The clerk snottily replied, “We don’t take those here,” in her hick Montana accent.
**Fred Meyer takes Canadian money, for what it’s worth. **
I’m a real cheerleader for the Sacagawea dollar (which I’m trying to get nicknamed the “Socky”). But of course, for it to really get used, you’ve gotta lean on the $2 bill a bit. So every time I’ve gone to the bank lately I’ve asked for a bunch of Sockys and $2 bills, and I’ve used them to pay for all sorts of things. No one’s rejected them yet, and believe it or not, quite a few cashiers’ eyes have lit up when I’ve handed them Sockys – “Oooh, this is the first time I’ve seen one of these!”
The trouble is, this is the first time they’ve seen one of these. I can’t get anyone to give me Sockys or twos in change. After a few days, all my Sockys are gone, and I’ve got a wallet stuffed with singles. Probably the retailers are simply trading all the Sockys and twos in at the bank for the conventional stuff. Stop interfering with my mission of Socky acceptance, retailers! Give out Sockys when you make change!
I don’t want a two dollar bill for the same reason I don’t want a coin dollar. They don’t work in a vending machine or coin changer. Merchants get all pissy when you give them either, because the cash drawers weren’t designed to hold them.
>> Why aren’t two dollar bills popular?
They’re plenty popular with me! Please send me all your unwanted ones.
Currently here in Huntsville Alabama we have yet to recieve any large shipments of “sakies” the new one dollar coin.
Only wal-mart has them.
Not even my fricking bank.
Post office stamp machine making change?
Denied! I got 14 “suzies”
Hoping to spread acceptance of the “Sakies” here soon.
A summary and amateur psychoanalysis of the $2 bill’s popularity problems:
A few times I HAVE expressly gotten a bunch
of $2 bills at the bank just to observe reactions
when I passed them. I’m easily amused, I guess.
As people have already pointed out, one of the
major reasons they don’t circulate is that merchants
don’t set up their cash registers with a drawer
for them. If you do that experiment, you get
to observe that most of your $2 bills get shoved
underneath the cash drawer, and undoubtedly go
straight back to the bank.
Annoy your local retailers and wait-persons! Use
$2 bills.
It’s interesting that the phrase “queer as a two dollar bill” hasn’t come up yet. But I haven’t heard that phrase since I was a kid anyway.
When did they come out? I seem to remember it was sometime when I was in High School but that was after '76 and samclem says there are pre-76 bills 
I do remember keeping one in a separate corner of my wallet for the longest time because of the misprint.
Zyada: the expression is “queer as a three-dollar bill”, and there is a queer-studies column entitled Three Dollar Bill in our local alternative weekly.
Zyada,
The phrase is indeed, “queer as a three dollar bill”.
In the US, the Federal Government never issued a $3 bill. But prior to Federal Money(1862), individual banks, cities, merchants, etc. issued their own notes. There were many $3 notes issued from many states. There was even a $4 bill, and other weird denominations.
A note from the field. Today, I went to the bank and got some sackies (or sockies or whatever). This is the first I’d actually seen one, and these were fresh and still shiny.
I spent one at a grocery store in the evening, and the clerk commented on how shiny it was (apparently they tarnish quickly). But it wasn’t the first she’d seen them, she said she gets a few every day.
As far as the 2-dollar bill and the sackie succeeding, we have to get Congress to retire the one-dollar bill. That will free up a space in the cash drawer for the 2 and it will remove competition for the coin.
Phobia: many, if not most, vending machines do take the dollar coins, both the Susan B’s and new ones. In fact, vending machine makers wish that the one-dollar bill would be replaced by coins, since their machines make fewer errors with coins. And the clerk had a place for the coin tonight. The one I gave her was all alone there, though.
I read all the way through this thread only to find that dtilque had hijacked my point. I have always said that neither the one-dollar coin OR the two-dollar bill will succeed until the one-dollar bill is discontinued.
I also agree with several of the posters who said the problem lies in part with circulation. The $2 bills and $1 coins get either turned in to the bank with the $50 and $100 bills OR they get stuck in a sock drawer and ‘collected.’ I work at a book store and whenever I get a $2 bill, I don’t stick it under the drawer with the checks – I stash it in the cash drawer (in the extra slot to the left of the other bill slots) and give it back out as change as soon as I can. I have never yet been given a $1 coin as payment, but when I do I’ll be careful to get that puppy back in circulation ASAP. Furthermore, when I go to the bank tonight (it’s PAYDAY!) I’m gonna (as per several posters) ask for $2 bills and $1 coins and circulate 'em! I probably won’t make the $2 bills into a tablet though – my money doesn’t last long enough to play with it!
Sockie dollars? I am trying to get my fellow students to call them Sasquatch dollars, cause it sounds funny when you say it. Also, you never see them, kinda like bigfoot.
Can anyone here change a nine dollar bill for threes?
Sockie? Sasquatch?
Nah… SACKIES!!!