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I think the other thing about US currency is it comes from two different places. The federal reserve issues the paper currency, but the Treasury department issues the coinage. Lol if two departments would ever play nice together.
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Jul 14, 2015 15:59
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What I think is crazy is that we've had dollar coins since, what, the 1970s? I know there were earlier ones, too, but we've had new coins continuously minted since the Eisenhower dollar, I think. And yet people still don't use them. The only time I ever see them is in vending machines at the post office (because the amount of change involved is big enough to merit it). I remember getting Susan B. Anthony dollars as change at the post office when I was a kid, even. But people just aren't interested.
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Jul 14, 2015 16:03
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A good watch A+++  pookel posted:Dollar coins would be a big improvement though, imo. Up here in North Dakota we were big fans of the Sakakawea* dollar coin, but it didn't really catch on. I'm in Winnipeg, so I head to North Dakota pretty much any time I need to do some cross border shopping and I always get a wad of smelly one dollar notes instead of coins. Are the cashiers detecting I am not Norwegian enough to be a local and issuing me paper currency to keep the coins for themselves?
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Jul 14, 2015 16:12
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I don't want to carry a bunch of loving coins around. I barely carry any cash these days anyway, but having a few small bills is handy, while I literally never take change anywhere but the bank or a coinstar.
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Jul 14, 2015 16:39
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pookel posted:
The repetitive insistence of the word SPECIMEN is kind of unnerving.
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Jul 14, 2015 16:41
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Antifreeze Head posted:I'm in Winnipeg, so I head to North Dakota pretty much any time I need to do some cross border shopping and I always get a wad of smelly one dollar notes instead of coins. Are the cashiers detecting I am not Norwegian enough to be a local and issuing me paper currency to keep the coins for themselves? By the way, your city is pretty awesome.
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Jul 14, 2015 16:41
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pookel posted:What I think is crazy is that we've had dollar coins since, what, the 1970s? I know there were earlier ones, too, but we've had new coins continuously minted since the Eisenhower dollar, I think. And yet people still don't use them. The only time I ever see them is in vending machines at the post office (because the amount of change involved is big enough to merit it). I remember getting Susan B. Anthony dollars as change at the post office when I was a kid, even. But people just aren't interested. The weird thing is that Dollar coins should have started catching on after vending machine soda prices went above $1 per item, but vending machine manufacturers installed bill readers that don't work half the time instead of upgrading any of the coin mechanisms to accept $1 coins. I guess the problem is solving itself as we're at the point where card readers are becoming more and more common. Cash will never go away, but I personally don't keep much cash or change on me these days since I'm able to get by on nothing but card transactions.
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Jul 14, 2015 16:41
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pookel posted:What I think is crazy is that we've had dollar coins since, what, the 1970s? I know there were earlier ones, too, but we've had new coins continuously minted since the Eisenhower dollar, I think. And yet people still don't use them. The only time I ever see them is in vending machines at the post office (because the amount of change involved is big enough to merit it). I remember getting Susan B. Anthony dollars as change at the post office when I was a kid, even. But people just aren't interested. I used to use them for tolls before the widespread implementation of ezpass (and similar systems.) $10-20 in dollar coins easily fit into the change tray in my car and were much easier to use than bills when you're driving. Now the only time I encounter them is at a coin operated car wash near where I live that uses them instead of quarters.
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Jul 14, 2015 16:44
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Aphrodite posted:There's also charge cards which are like credit cards but need to be paid in full every month. I don't know if those are still a thing though.
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Jul 14, 2015 17:14
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I remember the last time I went to the states I was excited near the end since my wallet was bursting with cash; turns out I had like $30 in dollar bills.
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Jul 14, 2015 17:34
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robodex posted:I remember the last time I went to the states I was excited near the end since my wallet was bursting with cash; turns out I had like $30 in dollar bills. In the US, it's traditional to go to the strip club in situations like these
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Jul 14, 2015 17:39
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Last Chance posted:In the US, it's traditional to go to the strip club in situations like these I'm gay and was in the middle of rural wisconsin so I doubt I would have had much fun 
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Jul 14, 2015 17:40
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robodex posted:I'm gay and was in the middle of rural wisconsin so I doubt I would have had much fun
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Jul 14, 2015 17:50
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I think the last place I remember seeing one of those ancient credit card things was in an equally ancient Rally's commercial. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcExSzZF_h0 m2pt5 has a new favorite as of 18:07 on Jul 14, 2015 |
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Jul 14, 2015 18:05
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Super Waffle posted:If we got rid of the $1 bill we would have to tip our strippers with $5's Are you saying your mother doesn't deserve a five-dollar tip?
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Jul 14, 2015 18:37
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robodex posted:I remember the last time I went to the states I was excited near the end since my wallet was bursting with cash; turns out I had like $30 in dollar bills.
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Jul 14, 2015 18:55
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Zonekeeper posted:The weird thing is that Dollar coins should have started catching on after vending machine soda prices went above $1 per item, but vending machine manufacturers installed bill readers that don't work half the time instead of upgrading any of the coin mechanisms to accept $1 coins. http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_114/Dollar-Fight-Is-Paper-Vs-Metal-213304-1.html Of course, lobbying 
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Jul 14, 2015 19:44
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SLOSifl posted:I don't want to carry a bunch of loving coins around. Stop being such a drat baby that you might have to carry up to four (4) coins in your precious raw denim jorts. US money is getting more colourful and visually interesting but I wish we'd go whole hog and have bright neon colours and polymer notes. And maybe I've just been lucky, but I've never encountered a soda machine that wouldn't take my dollar coins at value.
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Jul 14, 2015 19:46
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All the vending machines around here have card swipers now 
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Jul 14, 2015 19:53
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Time to design a stick-on card skimmer to put on vending machines that don't yet have card readers.
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Jul 14, 2015 19:56
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cobalt impurity posted:US money is getting more colourful and visually interesting but I wish we'd go whole hog and have bright neon colours and polymer notes. And maybe I've just been lucky, but I've never encountered a soda machine that wouldn't take my dollar coins at value.  I wish.
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Jul 14, 2015 20:06
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pookel posted:I've never seen a pop machine that would take dollar coins at all. On the machine thing, I think a part of the problem is that we've had several different sizes and metal compositions over the years. Pennies, Nickels, Dimes and Quarters have stayed the same size/weight since at least the early 20th century yet we've seen 3 completely different dollar shapes/sizes since the 70s alone. (The old Ike dollars, the Susan B. Anthony dollars, and the Sacajawea/Presidential dollars.)
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Jul 14, 2015 20:20
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robodex posted:I'm gay and was in the middle of rural wisconsin so I doubt I would have had much fun You would think that wouldn't you... http://clubfly.com/venue/905/oz_wausau.html
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Jul 14, 2015 20:34
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The reason dollar coins never caught on is because Americans just love, love, love hoarding the drat things. Those and half dollars people just buy up, stuff in a jar, and never spend, ever. The reason people hoard them is because they're uncommon but they're uncommon because people hoard them. Welp.
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Jul 14, 2015 20:48
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ToxicSlurpee posted:The reason dollar coins never caught on is because Americans just love, love, love hoarding the drat things. Those and half dollars people just buy up, stuff in a jar, and never spend, ever. The reason people hoard them is because they're uncommon but they're uncommon because people hoard them. Welp. I'd bet people would stop that poo poo real quick if $1 bills weren't around. In the current setup $1 bills are "Normal Dollars" and the coins are these weird things you don't see very often because nobody keeps them in the change drawers and machines don't take them.
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Jul 14, 2015 20:53
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Zonekeeper posted:I'd bet people would stop that poo poo real quick if $1 bills weren't around. In the current setup $1 bills are "Normal Dollars" and the coins are these weird things you don't see very often because nobody keeps them in the change drawers and machines don't take them. Same thing happens with the $2 bills. I currently have one in my wallet that I've had for at least 3 years now, don't ever see myself spending it, just have it. A friend of mine was given 100 $2 bills for his 18th birthday and when he would go to spend them he would get 1 of 3 reactions. IDK where to put this, sticks it with the $20s. What is this, it must be a counterfeit. Or no issue at all. The last rarely happened at all. A few times I was given a dollar coin in place of a quarter for change (supposed to get $0.27 back, was actually given $1.02), so that was always a nice surprise as I walked out of the store.
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Jul 14, 2015 21:03
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drgnwr1 posted:A few times I was given a dollar coin in place of a quarter for change (supposed to get $0.27 back, was actually given $1.02), so that was always a nice surprise as I walked out of the store. And this is why the Susan B. Anthony dollar flopped so hard. It was so visually and physically similar to a Quarter that this kind of thing happened all the time.
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Jul 14, 2015 21:16
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Zonekeeper posted:Pennies, Nickels, Dimes and Quarters have stayed the same size/weight since at least the early 20th century yet we've seen 3 completely different dollar shapes/sizes since the 70s alone. (The old Ike dollars, the Susan B. Anthony dollars, and the Sacajawea/Presidential dollars.) Counter example. The half dollar. Same composition and size history as the quarter for as long as the quarter. 
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Jul 14, 2015 21:23
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Coins are annoying as hell, why would we want to add a $1 coin?
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Jul 14, 2015 21:27
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blugu64 posted:Counter example. The half dollar. Same composition and size history as the quarter for as long as the quarter. Much larger than the quarter, though. I imagine manufacturing a machine that takes them is prohibitively expensive. Same applies to the Ike dollar, but that one's first replacement failed for other reasons I mentioned a few posts ago. Jmcrofts posted:Coins are annoying as hell, why would we want to add a $1 coin? We've had $1 coins for ages. The problem is that nobody uses them.
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Jul 14, 2015 21:30
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Zonekeeper posted:On the machine thing, I think a part of the problem is that we've had several different sizes and metal compositions over the years. Pennies, Nickels, Dimes and Quarters have stayed the same size/weight since at least the early 20th century yet we've seen 3 completely different dollar shapes/sizes since the 70s alone. (The old Ike dollars, the Susan B. Anthony dollars, and the Sacajawea/Presidential dollars.) When I visited the UK in the early '80s they had just rolled out the pound coin. It's just a hair bigger than the U.S. nickel but it's thick, which gave it an decent heft—it actually feels like a larger-denomination coin in your hand. Something like that might have done better over here, but there's no way the vending machine people would retrofit for it.
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Jul 14, 2015 21:34
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Coins last significantly longer than bills, so they're cheaper in the long run. I have a couple of coins right here that were minted in 1990 and have presumably been in regular circulation for 25 years, through pockets, wallets, cash registers, vending machines and so on. They're a little bit scuffed, but still perfectly legible and usable, even in picky vending machines. Coins can last much longer than that, but our current coin series was introduced starting in 1989. I do have some old-rear end British pence coins somewhere, that I got while I was in Scotland a couple of years ago. I think they're from as far back as the late 1970s. KozmoNaut has a new favorite as of 21:39 on Jul 14, 2015 |
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Jul 14, 2015 21:36
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Zonekeeper posted:On the machine thing, I think a part of the problem is that we've had several different sizes and metal compositions over the years. Pennies, Nickels, Dimes and Quarters have stayed the same size/weight since at least the early 20th century yet we've seen 3 completely different dollar shapes/sizes since the 70s alone. (The old Ike dollars, the Susan B. Anthony dollars, and the Sacajawea/Presidential dollars.)  The Sacajawea dollars were specifically designed to be identical to Susan B Anthony dollars in terms of density, size, and electrical properties, so all automated coin machines would automatically work with the new coins.One of the biggest problems was developing an alloy with the right material properties that also looked good. A lot of the ones that they discovered first just had an ugly reddish tint, rather than the new golden color.
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Jul 14, 2015 21:36
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I was in NYC in 2000 and bought a train tickey to Jersey from a machine with a $20. it gave me $13 change in Sacawakawegas. people in stores really didn't like it when I tried to spend them.
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Jul 14, 2015 21:47
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KozmoNaut posted:Coins last significantly longer than bills, so they're cheaper in the long run. I have a couple of coins right here that were minted in 1990 and have presumably been in regular circulation for 25 years, through pockets, wallets, cash registers, vending machines and so on. They're a little bit scuffed, but still perfectly legible and usable, even in picky vending machines.  Australian 20c pieces because that makes up most of my coin box. Only took a minute of digging to find a coin from 1974, 1975, 1982 and 1984. Honestly most coins you'll get these days are early 2000's stuff but it's not uncommon to get coins from the 70's and 80's. How long does the average dollar bill last?
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Jul 14, 2015 22:04
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In NY train ticket and subway card machines give change in sacajaweas, so that was a source of dollar coins but now like 99% of people pay with a card rather than cash so it doesn't really work to get them circulating. I like them, replace the dollar bill with $1 and $2 coins and just obliterate the penny.
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Jul 14, 2015 22:20
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Problem #1: Dollar coins are often hoarded because their rarity leads to people not using them Problem #2: Pennies are often thrown away as garbage because their value is so low Solution: A penny is now worth a dollar. Boom!
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Jul 14, 2015 22:21
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Croccers posted:1990?  quote:How long does the average dollar bill last? Supposedly 2 to 4 years. So at most a tenth of how long a coin will last.
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Jul 14, 2015 22:36
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Tunicate posted:
I was completely unaware! So these are basically the treasury doing what they should have in the first place and making the coins a different color. That explains why it took them until 1999 to release them. Still, the damage was done by the original run of SBAs, and I don't recall ever seeing a machine that took SBAs in the first place so that particular property of the new dollars doesn't seem very useful. (Granted I don't live near any toll roads, where I imagine dollar coins got the most use.)
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Jul 14, 2015 23:11
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My uncle tips with a few Sacajaweas at restaurants as a way for servers to remember him. He tends to get pretty good service around town because of it (he also puts a tip on his card, but always throws 4 or 5 Sacajawea coins down as well). Personally, I don't like carrying around change. It's just more annoying poo poo jangling around in my pockets. My truck console, however, is loaded with change, and is used regularly at drive-thru's and car washes.
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Jul 15, 2015 00:22
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