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Paper notes are still far more convenient to carry than coins and the US has far
more vending machines and cash register drawers than most other countries. While many will accept dollar coins, the ones that do tend to be government owned (ie Post Office) or located in casinos. The far more ubiqutous soda and candy vending machines tend to take nickels, dime and quarters, and if you are really lucky, the have a working receiver for $1 bills. I think if you tried it, you'd find that most vending machines also take dollar coins. At the time the government issued the SBA dollars, the size was chosen in cooperation with the vending industry to make modifications to machines easy. Then they found that the coins were hard to tell from quarters, so now they're a different color and have a smooth edge, but people still don't like them. I gather the vending industry would be thrilled if we switched to dollar coins, so they wouldn't need all those fragile bill acceptors. Everyone in the US seems to think it would be awful if we didn't have dollar bills, but everywhere else they've switched similar value notes to coins, it hasn't been a big deal. What they really need to do at the same time is get rid of pennies and round cash prices to 5c, both to make room in cash drawers for the dollars, and because pennies are worthless. We made do with pennies in 1947, and the value of a penny then is about a dime now. ObTransit: what coins do Metrocard machines take? They must take dollar coins, since they return them as change. Do they take pennies? R's, John |
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On Dec 27, 6:12*pm, Robert Neville wrote:
Jarle H Knudsen wrote: I'm amazed you still use one dollar bills. Why haven't they been phased out? Paper notes are still far more convenient to carry than coins and the US has far more vending machines and cash register drawers than most other countries.. While many will accept dollar coins, the ones that do tend to be government owned (ie Post Office) or located in casinos. The far more ubiqutous soda and candy vending machines tend to take nickels, dime and quarters, and if you are really lucky, the have a working receiver for $1 bills. Replacing all those won't be cheap and the cost would fall on the machine owner while the benefit went to the government. Benefit? There's upwards of a billion Presidential Dollar coins sitting in warehouses, because Congress mandated that vast numbers more be minted than there was a collectors' market for; they shipped them to banks, and eventually the banks shipped them back. (I've never seen one. The last time I used a p.o. vending machine, at least two years ago, I got both Sackies and Susan B's.) Just the storage is costly I've lived in both kinds of countries and used both types of currencies. While you can make an argument that coins are cheaper over their lifetime, I'm glad the US is still using paper. And 1c coins, too. |
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On Dec 27, 6:21*pm, "
wrote: On 27/12/2011 22:57, Neil Williams wrote: On Tue, 27 Dec 2011 10:00:55 -0800 (PST), wrote: SEPTA, unlike NYC, accepts dollar bills on its buses. I don't know why NYC's fareboxes aren't set up to handle that. The US could really, really do with $1, $2 and $5 coins for this sort of purpose. I genuinely do not understand why people are so resistant. Neil They do have one-dollar coins and they and TVMs in New York City regularly dispense them as change. The interesting thing is that they have minted a few different series to ease use since the late 1970s, when the Susan B. Anthony dollar replaced the Eisenhower dollars, which were almost as big as a five-pound coin. They were the size silver dollars had been for generations. |
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On Dec 27, 6:21*pm, Miles Bader wrote:
Neil Williams writes: SEPTA, unlike NYC, accepts dollar bills on its buses. *I don't know why NYC's fareboxes aren't set up to handle that. The US could really, really do with $1, $2 and $5 coins for this sort of purpose. *I genuinely do not understand why people are so resistant. "If dollar bills were good enough for Jesus, they're good enough for me!" It must mean something that the $1 bill was not redesigned with the giant portrait when all(? I haven't seen a $2 bill since my 1993 visit to Monticello -- where the admission fee was $8 so that they could return Jeffersons in change) the other bills in circulation ($5, $10, $20, $50, $100) were. p.s. By random luck, I got a ¥100 paper note in a store a while back: a customer was trying to use it, and the store wouldn't take it (though they're technically still legal tender), so I bought off her for a ¥100 coin... :] I did that with a $2 bill once in eastern Ohio at a gas station convenience store. |
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On 27/12/2011 23:49, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
On Dec 27, 6:21 pm, wrote: On 27/12/2011 22:57, Neil Williams wrote: On Tue, 27 Dec 2011 10:00:55 -0800 (PST), wrote: SEPTA, unlike NYC, accepts dollar bills on its buses. I don't know why NYC's fareboxes aren't set up to handle that. The US could really, really do with $1, $2 and $5 coins for this sort of purpose. I genuinely do not understand why people are so resistant. Neil They do have one-dollar coins and they and TVMs in New York City regularly dispense them as change. The interesting thing is that they have minted a few different series to ease use since the late 1970s, when the Susan B. Anthony dollar replaced the Eisenhower dollars, which were almost as big as a five-pound coin. They were the size silver dollars had been for generations. I didn't quite understand you. |
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On 27/12/2011 23:52, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
On Dec 27, 6:21 pm, Miles wrote: Neil writes: SEPTA, unlike NYC, accepts dollar bills on its buses. I don't know why NYC's fareboxes aren't set up to handle that. The US could really, really do with $1, $2 and $5 coins for this sort of purpose. I genuinely do not understand why people are so resistant. "If dollar bills were good enough for Jesus, they're good enough for me!" It must mean something that the $1 bill was not redesigned with the giant portrait when all(? I haven't seen a $2 bill since my 1993 visit to Monticello -- where the admission fee was $8 so that they could return Jeffersons in change) the other bills in circulation ($5, $10, $20, $50, $100) were. p.s. By random luck, I got a ¥100 paper note in a store a while back: a customer was trying to use it, and the store wouldn't take it (though they're technically still legal tender), so I bought off her for a ¥100 coin... :] I did that with a $2 bill once in eastern Ohio at a gas station convenience store. I think that two-dollar bills would be easy enough to come by as they are in general circulation. Just go to a bank and ask for a few. |
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On 27/12/2011 23:40, John Levine wrote:
Paper notes are still far more convenient to carry than coins and the US has far more vending machines and cash register drawers than most other countries. While many will accept dollar coins, the ones that do tend to be government owned (ie Post Office) or located in casinos. The far more ubiqutous soda and candy vending machines tend to take nickels, dime and quarters, and if you are really lucky, the have a working receiver for $1 bills. I think if you tried it, you'd find that most vending machines also take dollar coins. At the time the government issued the SBA dollars, the size was chosen in cooperation with the vending industry to make modifications to machines easy. Then they found that the coins were hard to tell from quarters, so now they're a different color and have a smooth edge, but people still don't like them. I always thought that the SBA might have survived if they made sides out of the coin, rather than make it round, similar to what they have done in other nations. It would have helped the visually impaired and it would have made it obvious to the casual observer what it was. I wonder why they never did that. Everyone in the US seems to think it would be awful if we didn't have dollar bills, but everywhere else they've switched similar value notes to coins, it hasn't been a big deal. Psychological factors play a role, me thinks. What they really need to do at the same time is get rid of pennies and round cash prices to 5c, both to make room in cash drawers for the dollars, and because pennies are worthless. We made do with pennies in 1947, and the value of a penny then is about a dime now. I don't think that will happen in the United States, unfortunately. Finland got rid of its one-cent coins, however. ObTransit: what coins do Metrocard machines take? They must take dollar coins, since they return them as change. I believe that they take everything from 5 cents upward to dollar coins. Do they take pennies? No, but I know that the vending machines at US post offices do take them. |
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On 27/12/2011 23:46, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
On Dec 27, 6:12 pm, Robert wrote: Jarle H wrote: I'm amazed you still use one dollar bills. Why haven't they been phased out? Paper notes are still far more convenient to carry than coins and the US has far more vending machines and cash register drawers than most other countries. While many will accept dollar coins, the ones that do tend to be government owned (ie Post Office) or located in casinos. The far more ubiqutous soda and candy vending machines tend to take nickels, dime and quarters, and if you are really lucky, the have a working receiver for $1 bills. Replacing all those won't be cheap and the cost would fall on the machine owner while the benefit went to the government. Benefit? There's upwards of a billion Presidential Dollar coins sitting in warehouses, because Congress mandated that vast numbers more be minted than there was a collectors' market for; they shipped them to banks, and eventually the banks shipped them back. (I've never seen one. The last time I used a p.o. vending machine, at least two years ago, I got both Sackies and Susan B's.) Just the storage is costly I've lived in both kinds of countries and used both types of currencies. While you can make an argument that coins are cheaper over their lifetime, I'm glad the US is still using paper. And 1c coins, too. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as well as Canada each use their respective penny coins. |
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John Levine writes:
the value of a penny then is about a dime now. Is the value in the material or the labor/etc for making them? If the former, and they don't want to get rid of pennies, maybe they could make a new money using cheaper material. Japanese yen coins are made of aluminum, which is about 1/3 the cost of copper per unit weight, and 1/4 the weight per unit volume, so you'd get a factor of 12 drop in material cost per coin -- and then you could even make the coin smaller! I don't know the somewhat softer metal would have any significant effect on durability in normal use, but I haven't noticed any obvious difference from other Japanese coins in terms of wear or average age. [I like these small aluminum coins because they're very easy on the pockets and very easy to identify by touch.] -miles -- Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. |
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On Tue, 27 Dec 2011 23:40:55 +0000, John Levine wrote:
We made do with pennies in 1947, and the value of a penny then is about a dime now. In 1947 UK, we had the farthing, this was 1/4d (a quarter penny) and was last minted in the 1950s. When we went decimal in the early 1970s (February 1972 if my memory serves me correctly), the pound stayed the pound, but the smaller denominations were changed such that there were 5 new pence to 12d or an old shilling. The smallest decimal coin was 1/2 a new pence, worth roughly 1.2 old pence or just under 5 old farthings, although I can't remember if we were still using farthings then (we were certainly using ha'penny's shortly before decimalization, I remember spending them in the sweet shop on the way to school in the early 1970s). Since then we've dropped the 1/2 pence coin, so our smallest coin now is the decimal penny, worth 2.4 old pence or about 10 times the value of the smallest denomination coin we were using in 1947. The smallest note in general circulation now is the GBP 5.00 note, back in 1947 I think it was the 10/- or 10 shilling note, which at decimalization was equivalent to the 50p coin, so I guess you could say that in the UK, now, both the smallest denomination coin and the smallest denomination note in general circulation are fiscally worth 10 times more than the smallest denomination coin and the smallest denomination note in general circulation in 1947. Rgds Denis McMahon |
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On 28/12/2011 01:20, Miles Bader wrote:
John writes: the value of a penny then is about a dime now. Is the value in the material or the labor/etc for making them? I think that it is indeed the labour. If the former, and they don't want to get rid of pennies, maybe they could make a new money using cheaper material. Would require an act of congress, most likely. Japanese yen coins are made of aluminum, which is about 1/3 the cost of copper per unit weight, and 1/4 the weight per unit volume, so you'd get a factor of 12 drop in material cost per coin -- and then you could even make the coin smaller! I don't know the somewhat softer metal would have any significant effect on durability in normal use, but I haven't noticed any obvious difference from other Japanese coins in terms of wear or average age. [I like these small aluminum coins because they're very easy on the pockets and very easy to identify by touch.] They also had them in Italy and East Germany, when they respectively had the lira and mark. I think that I even have a 50-pfennig and 1-mark piece somewhere. |
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" wrote:
On 28/12/2011 01:20, Miles Bader wrote: I don't know the somewhat softer metal would have any significant effect on durability in normal use, but I haven't noticed any obvious difference from other Japanese coins in terms of wear or average age. [I like these small aluminum coins because they're very easy on the pockets and very easy to identify by touch.] They also had them in Italy and East Germany, when they respectively had the lira and mark. I think that I even have a 50-pfennig and 1-mark piece somewhere. Apparently several Euro zone countries - including Germany - have now completed the printing of sufficient banknotes in their own currencies to be able to cope when/if the Euro fails. I wonder if they have also minted coins? |
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In " writes:
pennies? No, but I know that the vending machines at US post offices do take them. Except that.. just about all US Post Offices have eliminated the coin and bill vending machines in favor of the credit/debit card only.. Automated Postal Machines. (I think that's their name; might be misremembering). -- __________________________________________________ ___ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] |
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On Dec 27, 5:09*pm, Bolwerk wrote:
SEPTA, unlike NYC, accepts dollar bills on its buses. *I don't know why NYC's fareboxes aren't set up to handle that. Because it's time consuming and a pain in the ass. *Dropping change in is easy and you can use dollar coins - though I suppose the downside to dollar coins is about the only place I can readily find them is in transit vending machines. You answered your own post. Dollar coins are not easy to find. Further, many independent merchants dislike them because they're too easily confused with quarters. Chain store clerks gotta take them, but sometimes they think you gave them a quarter. Supposedly dollar coins are easy for vision-impaired to tell apart, but the men who service our vending machines absolutely despise them, so as a courtesy I don't use them in our machines. Just read the mint cancelled production of more dollar coins since the warehouses are jammed. |
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On Dec 27, 5:20*pm, Jarle H Knudsen wrote:
I'm amazed you still use one dollar bills. Why haven't they been phased out? Because people really like them and don't want to get rid of them. The govt has been making dollar coins for you in hopes that they'll replace the dollar bill, but few want them. |
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On Dec 27, 6:12*pm, Robert Neville wrote:
Paper notes are still far more convenient to carry than coins and the US has far more vending machines and cash register drawers than most other countries.. While many will accept dollar coins, the ones that do tend to be government owned (ie Post Office) or located in casinos. The far more ubiqutous soda and candy vending machines tend to take nickels, dime and quarters, and if you are really lucky, the have a working receiver for $1 bills. Replacing all those won't be cheap and the cost would fall on the machine owner while the benefit went to the government. Originally the vending machine industry wanted dollar coins. But they were able to come up with a dollar bill reader, and almost all vending machines have one now, and now they almost always work fine. One machine that could've been modified to take dollar coins is the pay phone. But pay phones are rapdily disappearing, and many don't even take coins for long distance calls, only local calls. (Many in NYC do take coins for long distance, about 25c/ minute, $1 minimum). |
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On Tue, 27 Dec 2011 15:52:18 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels"
wrote: p.s. By random luck, I got a ¥100 paper note in a store a while back: a customer was trying to use it, and the store wouldn't take it (though they're technically still legal tender), so I bought off her for a ¥100 coin... :] I did that with a $2 bill once in eastern Ohio at a gas station convenience store. When I was in college (1953) I got a strange dollar bill in change once. It looked alright on one side but the other one looked like Monopoly money. I took it to the school's cashier who gladly exchanged it for a "regular" dollar bill. Many years later I realized that it was a WW-II special series issued to Hawaiian residents and service personnel which had some collector value. I personally do not deal in cash - paper or metal - any more to any great extent. Except for my monthly haircut (barber is not set up for anything but cash) and the tips and gratuities that I give to AMTRAK sleeping and dining car attendants, everything else is via plastic or prepaid paper tickets purchased with plastic. -- Phil Kane - Beaverton, OR PNW Beburg MP 28.0 - OE District |
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the value of a penny then is about a dime now.
Is the value in the material or the labor/etc for making them? No, no. What you could buy for 1c in 1948 costs 10c now. If the former, and they don't want to get rid of pennies, maybe they could make a new money using cheaper material. They already did that in 1982, making pennies mostly out of zinc rather than the more expensive copper. But even so, they now cost 2c to make. R's, John |
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On Wed, 28 Dec 2011 10:20:50 +0900, Miles Bader wrote:
Japanese yen coins are made of aluminum, which is about 1/3 the cost of copper per unit weight, and 1/4 the weight per unit volume, so you'd get a factor of 12 drop in material cost per coin -- and then you could even make the coin smaller! The before-1980-inflation Israeli equivalent to a one-cent piece was about a centimeter in diameter, made of aluminium with large scalloped edges - very easy to identify. (Un)fortunately, they are all out of current circulation because they don't buy anything in today's economy. -- Phil Kane - Beaverton, OR PNW Beburg MP 28.0 - OE District |
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You answered your own post. Dollar coins are not easy to find.
Further, many independent merchants dislike them because they're too easily confused with quarters. Chain store clerks gotta take them, but sometimes they think you gave them a quarter. I realize that chain store clerks are often not too bright, but they must be totally brain-dead if they can't tell a yellow smooth-edged dollar from a white notch-edged quarter. R's, John |
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In Phil Kane writes:
On Wed, 28 Dec 2011 10:20:50 +0900, Miles Bader wrote: Japanese yen coins are made of aluminum, which is about 1/3 the cost of copper per unit weight, and 1/4 the weight per unit volume, so you'd get a factor of 12 drop in material cost per coin -- and then you could even make the coin smaller! The before-1980-inflation Israeli equivalent to a one-cent piece was about a centimeter in diameter, made of aluminium with large scalloped edges - very easy to identify. (Un)fortunately, they are all out of current circulation because they don't buy anything in today's economy. -- And then there were the Asimonim used in the gov't owned payphones..... (not to be confused with the Isaac's) obtransit: the Israeli buses back then used regular coins, not tokens. -- __________________________________________________ ___ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] |
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"Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
And 1c coins, too. A number of years ago I was in Venezuela for the first time and being not entirely familiar with the local currency (this was pre-Chavez), I was somewhat confused when a store checker rounded my change down. It must have been a common reaction as she handed me a boiled sweet when I looked at her somewhat quizzically. Later I learned that they had eliminated the "1c" coin for cash transactions and rounded as a matter of course. |
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On Dec 27, 7:49*pm, "
wrote: On 27/12/2011 23:49, Peter T. Daniels wrote: On Dec 27, 6:21 pm, wrote: On 27/12/2011 22:57, Neil Williams wrote: *On Tue, 27 Dec 2011 10:00:55 -0800 (PST), wrote: SEPTA, unlike NYC, accepts dollar bills on its buses. I don't know why NYC's fareboxes aren't set up to handle that. The US could really, really do with $1, $2 and $5 coins for this sort of purpose. I genuinely do not understand why people are so resistant. Neil They do have one-dollar coins and they and TVMs in New York City regularly dispense them as change. The interesting thing is that they have minted a few different series to ease use since the late 1970s, when the Susan B. Anthony dollar replaced the Eisenhower dollars, which were almost as big as a five-pound coin. They were the size silver dollars had been for generations. I didn't quite understand you.- The Susie B's were made in a much smaller, but thick and many-sided, size so as to make them more convenient for the pocket. (It didn't help.) |
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On Dec 27, 7:51*pm, "
wrote: On 27/12/2011 23:52, Peter T. Daniels wrote: On Dec 27, 6:21 pm, Miles *wrote: Neil *writes: SEPTA, unlike NYC, accepts dollar bills on its buses. *I don't know why NYC's fareboxes aren't set up to handle that. The US could really, really do with $1, $2 and $5 coins for this sort of purpose. *I genuinely do not understand why people are so resistant. "If dollar bills were good enough for Jesus, they're good enough for me!" It must mean something that the $1 bill was not redesigned with the giant portrait when all(? I haven't seen a $2 bill since my 1993 visit to Monticello -- where the admission fee was $8 so that they could return Jeffersons in change) the other bills in circulation ($5, $10, $20, $50, $100) were. p.s. By random luck, I got a ¥100 paper note in a store a while back: a customer was trying to use it, and the store wouldn't take it (though they're technically still legal tender), so I bought off her for a ¥100 coin... :] I did that with a $2 bill once in eastern Ohio at a gas station convenience store. I think that two-dollar bills would be easy enough to come by as they are in general circulation. Just go to a bank and ask for a few.- Have you ever seen one? Have you ever seen a cash register till with a slot for them? Has the store cashier ever seen one? I'm going to the bank tomorrow -- I'll try to remember to ask if they have any on hand. (Part of their unpopularity was said to have to do with their association -- generations ago -- with two-dollar whores and two- dollar bets at the track, where apparently you were supposed to tear off a corner for luck, which would have taken them out of circulation long before what would have been their natural lifespan, about 18 months, if they were in regular usage.) |
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On Dec 27, 7:57*pm, "
wrote: On 27/12/2011 23:40, John Levine wrote: Paper notes are still far more convenient to carry than coins and the US has far more vending machines and cash register drawers than most other countries. While many will accept dollar coins, the ones that do tend to be government owned (ie Post Office) or located in casinos. The far more ubiqutous soda and candy vending machines tend to take nickels, dime and quarters, and if you are really lucky, the have a working receiver for $1 bills. I think if you tried it, you'd find that most vending machines also take dollar coins. *At the time the government issued the SBA dollars, the size was chosen in cooperation with the vending industry to make modifications to machines easy. *Then they found that the coins were hard to tell from quarters, so now they're a different color and have a smooth edge, but people still don't like them. I always thought that the SBA might have survived if they made sides out The Small Business Administration? Oh, you mean the Susie B. The _faces_ do have sides, though the edges are circular. Maybe vending machines wouldn't accept an 18- or 20-sided coin. The Sackies are round but goldish-colored and smooth-edged like a nickel rather than milled. of the coin, rather than make it round, similar to what they have done in other nations. It would have helped the visually impaired and it would have made it obvious to the casual observer what it was. I wonder why they never did that. Everyone in the US seems to think it would be awful if we didn't have dollar bills, but everywhere else they've switched similar value notes to coins, it hasn't been a big deal. Psychological factors play a role, me thinks. What they really need to do at the same time is get rid of pennies and round cash prices to 5c, both to make room in cash drawers for the dollars, and because pennies are worthless. *We made do with pennies in 1947, and the value of a penny then is about a dime now. I don't think that will happen in the United States, unfortunately. Finland got rid of its one-cent coins, however. ObTransit: what coins do Metrocard machines take? *They must take dollar coins, since they return them as change. I believe that they take everything from 5 cents upward to dollar coins. Do they take pennies? No, but I know that the vending machines at US post offices do take them. NJT buses take cents. (I don't say "pennies" because we're talking to persons of the British persuasion, and British pence were humungous -- are they still?) |
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On Dec 27, 8:26*pm, "
wrote: On 28/12/2011 01:20, Miles Bader wrote: John *writes: the value of a penny then is about a dime now. Is the value in the material or the labor/etc for making them? I think that it is indeed the labour. Neither. He's talking about inflation. A 10c candy bar is now a $1 candy bar. If the former, and they don't want to get rid of pennies, maybe they could make a new money using cheaper material. Would require an act of congress, most likely. There's very little, if any, copper in a cent any more. Japanese yen coins are made of aluminum, which is about 1/3 the cost of copper per unit weight, and 1/4 the weight per unit volume, so you'd get a factor of 12 drop in material cost per coin -- and then you could even make the coin smaller! I don't know the somewhat softer metal would have any significant effect on durability in normal use, but I haven't noticed any obvious difference from other Japanese coins in terms of wear or average age. [I like these small aluminum coins because they're very easy on the pockets and very easy to identify by touch.] They also had them in Italy and East Germany, when they respectively had the lira and mark. I think that I even have a 50-pfennig and 1-mark piece somewhere. |
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On Dec 27, 7:58*pm, "
wrote: On 27/12/2011 23:46, Peter T. Daniels wrote: On Dec 27, 6:12 pm, Robert *wrote: Jarle H *wrote: I'm amazed you still use one dollar bills. Why haven't they been phased out? Paper notes are still far more convenient to carry than coins and the US has far more vending machines and cash register drawers than most other countries. While many will accept dollar coins, the ones that do tend to be government owned (ie Post Office) or located in casinos. The far more ubiqutous soda and candy vending machines tend to take nickels, dime and quarters, and if you are really lucky, the have a working receiver for $1 bills. Replacing all those won't be cheap and the cost would fall on the machine owner while the benefit went to the government. Benefit? There's upwards of a billion Presidential Dollar coins sitting in warehouses, because Congress mandated that vast numbers more be minted than there was a collectors' market for; they shipped them to banks, and eventually the banks shipped them back. (I've never seen one. The last time I used a p.o. vending machine, at least two years ago, I got both Sackies and Susan B's.) Just the storage is costly I've lived in both kinds of countries and used both types of currencies. While you can make an argument that coins are cheaper over their lifetime, I'm glad the US is still using paper. And 1c coins, too. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as well as Canada each use their respective penny coins.- UK pence are (these days) about 1.5c (if a GBP is still around $1.50). |
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On Dec 27, 9:49*pm, wrote:
On Dec 27, 5:09*pm, Bolwerk wrote: SEPTA, unlike NYC, accepts dollar bills on its buses. *I don't know why NYC's fareboxes aren't set up to handle that. Because it's time consuming and a pain in the ass. *Dropping change in is easy and you can use dollar coins - though I suppose the downside to dollar coins is about the only place I can readily find them is in transit vending machines. You answered your own post. *Dollar coins are not easy to find. Further, many independent merchants dislike them because they're too easily confused with quarters. *Chain store clerks gotta take them, but sometimes they think you gave them a quarter. Supposedly dollar coins are easy for vision-impaired to tell apart, but the men who service our vending machines absolutely despise them, so as a courtesy I don't use them in our machines. Just read the mint cancelled production of more dollar coins since the warehouses are jammed. They're going to still make Presidential Dollars, to complete the set, but only enough for the collector demand, not the millions of others that were supposed to be circulating. Speaking of which, I haven't seen a single National Parks quarter and they've been coming out for two years now -- whereas the State quarters showed up in change almost immediately, except for the Territories of 2009. I finally got a DC but none of the others. |
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We were about to embark at Dover, when (Denis
McMahon) came up to me and whispered: When we went decimal in the early 1970s (February 1972 if my memory serves me correctly), Feb 1971. -- Paul Cummins - Always a NetHead Wasting Bandwidth since 1981 IF you think this http://bit.ly/u5EP3p is cruel please sign this http://bit.ly/sKkzEx ---- If it's below this line, I didn't write it ---- |
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Peter T. Daniels remarked:
British pence were humungous -- are they still?) Since decimalisation they'd been small. About the size of a Dime. The only place I ever got a US dollar coin was in change at a Post Office. -- Roland Perry |
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In message , at 23:31:43 on Tue, 27
Dec 2011, " remarked: I saw somebody on the Midland Metro try to pay their fare with a unimetallic two-pound coin. I offered to take it off her hands for the equivalent face value when the conductor wouldn't take it. I also ont one in change at Wimbledon station once. It's quite unusual to get a £2 coin in manual change, but London Underground ticket machines churn them out. -- Roland Perry |
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|
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In message , at 04:13:42
on Wed, 28 Dec 2011, remarked: Farthings ceased to be legal tender in the late 1950s, 1957 IIRC. Wonkypedia says 31 Dec 1960. I remember getting farthings in change, as a child. Apparently the farthing was worth the equivalent of 2p in 1960, so it's high time we withdrew the 1p. -- Roland Perry |
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On Wed, 28 Dec 2011 10:30:07 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote: so it's high time we withdrew the 1p. And 2p, IMO. Neil -- Neil Williams, Milton Keynes, UK |
coinage, was bus partitions
On 28/12/2011 02:39, danny burstein wrote:
writes: pennies? No, but I know that the vending machines at US post offices do take them. Except that.. just about all US Post Offices have eliminated the coin and bill vending machines in favor of the credit/debit card only.. Automated Postal Machines. (I think that's their name; might be misremembering). Even in offices where there are postal employees? Ones that accept only cards here are in the unmanned offices, whereas the ones that accept currency are in the larger offices. |
coinage, was bus partitions
On 28/12/2011 05:39, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
On Dec 27, 7:57 pm, wrote: On 27/12/2011 23:40, John Levine wrote: Paper notes are still far more convenient to carry than coins and the US has far more vending machines and cash register drawers than most other countries. While many will accept dollar coins, the ones that do tend to be government owned (ie Post Office) or located in casinos. The far more ubiqutous soda and candy vending machines tend to take nickels, dime and quarters, and if you are really lucky, the have a working receiver for $1 bills. I think if you tried it, you'd find that most vending machines also take dollar coins. At the time the government issued the SBA dollars, the size was chosen in cooperation with the vending industry to make modifications to machines easy. Then they found that the coins were hard to tell from quarters, so now they're a different color and have a smooth edge, but people still don't like them. I always thought that the SBA might have survived if they made sides out The Small Business Administration? Oh, you mean the Susie B. The _faces_ do have sides, though the edges are circular. Maybe vending machines wouldn't accept an 18- or 20-sided coin. The Sackies are round but goldish-colored and smooth-edged like a nickel rather than milled. of the coin, rather than make it round, similar to what they have done in other nations. It would have helped the visually impaired and it would have made it obvious to the casual observer what it was. I wonder why they never did that. Everyone in the US seems to think it would be awful if we didn't have dollar bills, but everywhere else they've switched similar value notes to coins, it hasn't been a big deal. Psychological factors play a role, me thinks. What they really need to do at the same time is get rid of pennies and round cash prices to 5c, both to make room in cash drawers for the dollars, and because pennies are worthless. We made do with pennies in 1947, and the value of a penny then is about a dime now. I don't think that will happen in the United States, unfortunately. Finland got rid of its one-cent coins, however. ObTransit: what coins do Metrocard machines take? They must take dollar coins, since they return them as change. I believe that they take everything from 5 cents upward to dollar coins. Do they take pennies? No, but I know that the vending machines at US post offices do take them. NJT buses take cents. (I don't say "pennies" because we're talking to persons of the British persuasion, and British pence were humungous -- are they still?) Nice one. The British penny is about the size of a 1-cent coin in the United States. They haven't used pre-decimal coins here since the early '70s. |
coinage, was bus partitions
On 28/12/2011 02:29, Bruce wrote:
" wrote: On 28/12/2011 01:20, Miles Bader wrote: I don't know the somewhat softer metal would have any significant effect on durability in normal use, but I haven't noticed any obvious difference from other Japanese coins in terms of wear or average age. [I like these small aluminum coins because they're very easy on the pockets and very easy to identify by touch.] They also had them in Italy and East Germany, when they respectively had the lira and mark. I think that I even have a 50-pfennig and 1-mark piece somewhere. Apparently several Euro zone countries - including Germany - have now completed the printing of sufficient banknotes in their own currencies to be able to cope when/if the Euro fails. I just heard that yesterday. I wonder if they have also minted coins? No idea. |
coinage, was bus partitions
On 28/12/2011 05:42, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
On Dec 27, 8:26 pm, wrote: On 28/12/2011 01:20, Miles Bader wrote: John writes: the value of a penny then is about a dime now. Is the value in the material or the labor/etc for making them? I think that it is indeed the labour. Neither. He's talking about inflation. A 10c candy bar is now a $1 candy bar. If the former, and they don't want to get rid of pennies, maybe they could make a new money using cheaper material. Would require an act of congress, most likely. There's very little, if any, copper in a cent any more. Not since 1982, I think. Though there are plenty of people who hoard those coins. |
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coins, was bus partitions
On 28/12/2011 03:42, John Levine wrote:
You answered your own post. Dollar coins are not easy to find. Further, many independent merchants dislike them because they're too easily confused with quarters. Chain store clerks gotta take them, but sometimes they think you gave them a quarter. I realize that chain store clerks are often not too bright, but they must be totally brain-dead if they can't tell a yellow smooth-edged dollar from a white notch-edged quarter. R's, John Some of the older dollar coins are extremely similar to 25-cent coins, however. |
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