I don't know, man. I have an antique glass water bottle that I put loose change in. I'm anxious for the day far in the future when that thing will be full. I need pennies!
A few years ago I ran a thread about the purchasing power of our coinage. Then, there was nearly universal CT condemnation of the idea and labeled as "A great ripoff of the taxpayer by the government". Now, the response is pretty much a universal "Meh...it should have been done long ago". That gives us some insight into your first proposition. Your second proposition is a function politics...which we all know can only be discussed "Under Penalty Of Law".
The Norwegians are far ahead of the USA in getting rid of needless small denominated coins. When I worked and studied in Norway in 1969 coins in circulation were: 1, 2, 5, 10, 25, 50 øre and 1 and 5 kroner. A 10 kroner commemorative for circulation had been issued in 1964. Today? The smallest is 1 krone. All the øre coins have been demonetized. Kudos to them. Has it stopped the interest in collecting obsolete coins? Doesn't appear so. And to address the concerns of several in this discussion about being fleeced because of "rounding up" I find this a specious argument at best. Items are still priced, e.g. as 9.90 kroner or 5.50 kroner. But when a grocery cart full of items is paid for the rounding up is virtually meaningless. I mean think about it folks: who is going to go to the grocery store to buy ONE item at a time, over and over. Norway has also become almost cashless. I was at a train station a few years ago and REALLY needed to use the restroom. I didn't have a 10 kroner coin on me (about $1.50 at that time). I went to a kiosk and explained my predicament to a clerk. She said I could use my credit card. Sure enough, that capability was right there on the bathroom door. Commerce in Norway has not been hampered by getting rid of ridiculously small denominated coins. And the public has not been fleeced by "rounding up." I've never heard ONE Norwegian citizen complain about either of these two concerns. Steve
My understanding is that it takes an act of Congress to change coinage and any proposed legislation typically falls into the "lower priority" category and just gets dropped and ignored. Canada doesn't have that problem (or they at least have fewer problems), so they had an easier time abolishing the cent. As I said elsewhere, pretty much all modern coinage exists to make change. A quarter by itself buys very little to nothing these days (it apparently has the same purchasing power today that a half cent had in the 1840s). At some point the exceedingly irrelevant denominations in pocket change will become too excruciatingly irrelevant to ignore and something might just happen. Until then, or until someone with enough power in Congress gets behind coinage reform, nothing will change. The Mint remains profitable overall despite the strange seigniorage of cents and nickels, so it won't rise to the level of an emergency anytime soon.
LOL, since I use Amex over there as much as possible, it immediately showed up before I even finished my "job." I'm not sure, but I think it gave the name of the train station, which would've been NSB. More than ever, "Don't leave home without it." Germane to this discussion: I did an exploratory trip to Stockholm about 6-7 years ago before I had to guide a group of Americans there. In 3+ days I never used cash once! I don't recall if I had to use a pay toilet or not. Steve
Members. We’re all old farts. OMO The new members need to chase smaller potatoes. Just think back. Did you collect gold as your first collection. I’m old and my whole crew are chasing cent, nickels and dimes. We ain’t got money for all that other stuff. But we do talk about it
Oh I get it. Kick the dead horse. So new collectors now have to buy cents to complete Grandma’s coin collection cuz we’re chasing wheats
I gotta go. I just love saving cents. Cuz their books are so empty. They love when I toss a bunch of wheat cent for them to look thru
Ok let’s do it that way then. Just keep the cents and change the shield reverse. Hey. Did they present other options for the reverse 2010 cent to vote on?
You reach over grab the cents and make change. Perfect cycle , give one share one. Same cent could be there for days
