So I ran out of firewood and called a guy out of the local news classified. He dosnt show up untill Sunday by which time I'm out of cash. I figure, no big deal, I'll give him a few rolls of the presidential dollars (which I can easily replace at my local Bank of America) and he might even get a kick out of it. He dumps the cord in my yard, I hand him 6 rolls of Monroe coins and say 'these might be neat if anyone in your family collects coins'. He gets all red faced and (almost yelling) says 'I wish you would have told me this before I dropped the wood'! I calmly begin to explain that these are each $1 legal tender coins from the US mint and that he can spend them anywhere. But I'm not going to Chuck E Cheese anytime soon he retorts. Flabberghasted I have him follow me to a 7-11 where I hit the ATM and pay him off in bills. Never mind appreciation, I cant even spend these suckers for face value
I've been using them as "tips". I hadn't tried to use one for a regular purchase. /insert link to the taco bell $2 story here
I spend them all the time, just to see if they circulate...something you can experiment with in a small town. At the gas station I stop in at on my way to work every day, I usually buy a paper and some snacks for the trip with new dollar coins, and every day the girl there puts them aside for herself. She must have several hundred by now! Never had anyone refuse them...yet. Guy~
Do what I do: use them as a form of Silent Protest. Bus Service not up to par? Use Dollar coins instead of bills. Waitress giving you the backside? Pay her tip in dollar coins.
America needs to get rid of the one dollar note once and for all, so people can get over this fear of the one dollar coin nonsense.
With that Chuck E Cheese comment I would have told him he can either take them or pick up his wood and I'll get it from somewhere else. They are legal tender and if he doesn't take them and wants to be rude about it the heck with him. Any bank would have taken them as a deposit. Maybe he was worried his local watering hole would give him grief. This is one of those situations where I have no patience. It wasn't like you were giving him cents or lose change. Some people just have a lot of nerve, like dishing it out and never take it...
That is probably the only way a $1 coin will ever circulate again. Much of the general population has a mental block about using coins to pay for purchases...perceptions of being poor because you are raiding the couch cushions for cigarette and gas money. Another common "gripe" is ohh they weigh too much...I say quit carrying them and spend them. Carrying and counting out 20 singles is just as akward as toteing the coins. Having traveled internationally and used large $$ coinage I say you get used to it. Instead of breaking a $10 for a $7 purchase you use a $5 and two $1 coins. Suck it up and learn math. /rant and threadjack over.
a coin would last longer then a bill. we would cut costs in half of having to keep making the bills. bils rip, coins dont, bils go into vending, so do coins, maybe bills are easer to keep in a wallet but if we did what canada does, one dolar coin-two dollara coin, you see my point? and besides, the bills need to be more attractive, at least the coins keep changing and the look cool. the bills are to green. the bills nowdays are getting a little more coler. but not much.
I'm gonna go against the grain here...I personally would have stuck to my guns and tried to pay him with the $1 coins...it's not like it was loose change. That being said, personally I do not like the idea of replacing bills with $coins. I carry a very small money clip (enough to hold 20 bills or so and a few credit card/ID. I do not carry change in my suit at it jingles, and tempts you to rattle it around when you are presenting. It would be horrible to have to carry a bunch of heavy coins in my pockets...that's just my opinion! Let the flaming begin!
this same thing happened at our local sub shop the other day while i was having lunch i paid with the prez dollars and she acted like i just gave her a jug full of pennies to count out...she had to take them thats all i had on me..lol
I think most people simply don't want to go to the extra "effort" required to carry and spend $1 coins. I still toss them into a large mason jar whenever I get them. When the jar fills I'll take it to the bank and get cash. I did make an effort about a year ago to spend $1 coins at the corner grocery store, every morning when I bought coffee. I thought that might help get several into circulation in a small way. Every pay period I'd get 20 or 30 from the bank, SBAs and Sacs, and I'd spend them whenever. Turns out a guy who worked at the store was "buying" them all out of the cash register and taking them home to put in a jar. Same thing with 50¢ pieces. You'd think a coin with JFK on it would circulate more than it does, but 50¢ doesn't buy a whole lot these days. I'd like to see the mint try a $5 or $10 coin in the near furture. Maybe a $20 coin would see more success? I read somewhere that a US $1 bill has an average life span of 14 months. Perhaps it might be time to learn a lesson from our neighbors to the south and try a polymer bill? I got several for the first time last month when I went on a fishing trip, and I can tell you they are cool. I'll bet those suckers will be around for decades.
A couple of rambling thoughts here. They are my opinions only and I present them as such with all due respect to others with opposing points of view. I'm curious what y'all think. Pre-WW 2 the population of the US was under 100 million (if that number's wrong blame Ken Burns) Pre-WW 1 the US as a rule was fairly isolationist in it's views and in it's trading habits. (I credit my HS history teacher J Glenn Schneider for that info) The population was geographically more compact. Lines of commerce were simpler.... There were fewer banks, they were more central and personal to the lives of people. The same with day to day consumption. For the most part there was one or two grocery stores.in any given town..a dept. store. You knew the guy you got money from and the guy you were giving it to. In short, I believe currency designs changed as frequently as they did because they could. There was a certain trust established from the familiarity with the source. "If the banker said these were the new nickels, or on the one dollar note...you believed him." Fast forward to the US in a post-WW 2 world. The country is now anything but isolationist. The government and private business is becoming global in reach. The population of the US is growing rapidly. US currency is becoming a global currency. Up until this recent devaluation of the dollar, the US dollar had become almost the de facto benchmark for international commerce and the global economy. Almost anywhere in the world one could use the US dollar in some manner for commerce. In fact in some countries, the local currency was shunned in favor of US dollars. Along with this popularity came a reluctance to change the designs on US money. When there are now 100x people using a currency you want it to be stable. Fixed. Familiar. Look at how infrequently the BEP changed the designs on any small size currency since the thirties. Let's add in the effects of inflation and other economic growth. Our money doesn't go as far as it once did. Coinage becomes less and less useful in everyday use. Paper money becomes more useful by virtue of the higher denominations available, and because of its perceived convenience (lighter in weight, less likely to make your hands dirty. etc.) Once the government removed silver from coins whatever perception anyone might have over the 'increased value of silver coinage' over paper money is eroded. There becomes little difference between a hunk of base metal and a piece of paper. I agree in the use and value of higher denomination coins. Overseas I used them and it was no big deal. I certainly didn't long for a 1 Yuan note However, this country hasn't produced an acceptable dollar coin since the advent of the mini dollars. The SBA was too similar to the quarter, the Sac has a nice design, but the coin's metallic makeup makes it get ugly really fast. The new presidential dollars have all of the problems of the Sacs plus, the edge inscriptions while very cool in theory are in practice and execution WAAAY too small to read without a loupe I also believe that more pride was placed in what was on the US currency earlier in the country's history than now. When this country was half it's current age, the concept of a free republic was more novel. The national ideals were expressed through its currency. While we profess to say that these ideals are so important that they must be placed on our money...makes me think this mostly lip service. Case in point, the mini controversy that erupted over the edge inscriptions of the new presidential dollar coins after the mint made some error coins lacking "In God We Trust" which compelled Congress to Legislate a change in placement of the motto. I have no beef with the motto itself. But I don't know of anyone who called their congressmen because our coins were lacking any word or symbol of LIBERTY. I won't get into my beef with putting dead presidents on coins...even if one could hardly argue with the accomplishments and contributions that George, Tom, Abe, Franklin and Jack made to this country.
Yea but doing that may cause you to never see that guy or his wood again. And no one likes to be stuck out in the cold. Like when he's the only one with firewood when you need it.
The one dollar coin, so far and since the silver dollar, has been pug ugly, PC, and pot metal...in short, crap. THAT is why no one wants the things.
