How long can you use a coin as legal tender?

Yes all coins and currency are OFFICIALLY legal tender, and can be accepted or refused for payment. How ever it IS possible for the old silver and gold coins to lose their legal tender status if they have lost too much weight from wear. Around the time of the Civil War the government first began consideration of redemption of some of the minor coins and passed legislation for redemption of coin at face value if not worn beyond a certain amount. Coins worn more than that amount were no longer legal tender and were only acceptable at a pro-rated value by weight. And this goes back even further. Sec 16 of the original Mint Act states "all gold and silver coins which have been struck at and issued by said mint shall be legal tender in all payments whatsoever, those of full weight according to their respective values and those of less than full weight ay values proportional to their respective weights."

The Act of 1873 states that the coins are legal tender at their nominal values as long as they are not less than the legal standard weight less the legal per piece tolerance amount. If they are worn more than that then they are legal for their pro-rated value by weight. If they are more than 1 1/2% low they are to be withdrawn.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

An Off-The-Wall-Question:

What status will the 5-oz silver "America the Beautiful" bullion coins have? They will say "quarter dollar" on them. Can I spend these like a quarter? Seems like this is not in keeping with the history of coinage.

 

Anyway, just to answer the original question, you can spend any U.S. coin produced by the US Mint that has a stated denomination on it for face value. This could be economically ridiculous, but you can still do it.

And there are some abuses. At our coin club, a member brought in a news article from last fall about an elderly woman who went to the bank to cash in some old Liberty double eagle coins. She had ten of them. The bank teller gave her $200, which is the face value of the coins. Afterward, the woman was informed by friends that she should have received the gold content, and the bank fired the teller for misleading the woman and reimbursed her for the spot gold content. So it also goes both ways: both the spender and person accepting the payment need to agree on value. Interesting.

And the bank teller knew what he was doing. He pocketed the gold coins for face value, put $200 of his own money in bills into the till, and sold the double eagles to a coin dealer for the gold content. In reviewing his actions, the bank decided to fire him.


Steve

 

This actually happened!

A few short years ago, a tour bus driver in Baltimore was arrested for trying to pass counterfeit $2 bills.

This bus driver routinely transported children on day trips to various amusement parks, and as part of the service, he always gave each child a $2 bill for spending money. (Naturally, it was included in the fee charged to the parents.)

One day, he was at a McDonald's and he paid for his food with $2 bills that were left over from the previous junket. The employee looked at the bills, and told him that she couldn't accept them because they were counterfeit. She told him that the U.S. doesn't make $2 bills. After trying to reason with her, he asked to see the manager, and when shown the bills, the manager agreed that they were counterfeit because the U.S. doesn't make $2 bills. The manager summoned the Baltimore police, and when they arrived and were shown the $2 bills, they agreed with the manager and transported the bus driver to the station.

At the station, the $2 bills were shown to the duty sergeant as well as the ranking detective on duty. They contacted the Secret Service in Washington, and agents were sent from D.C. to Baltimore. Of course, all of this took several hours, and the bus driver remained in detention and had to spend every agonizing minute praying that somebody would know what they were talking about. When the agents finally arrived and were shown the "counterfeit" $2 bills, they asked, "So, what's wrong with them?"

I would imagine that he doesn't need to drive a bus any more thanks to McDonald's and the Baltimore City Police Department.

Chris

 

Story doesn't surprise me... lots of rocket scientists and brain surgeons living over there in Baltimore!

 

Did a little digging myself. Found this on Wikipedia:

"Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computers, discussed an experience he faced while attempting to use $2 bills at the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas. A common practice of Wozniak's was to legally purchase $2 bills in uncut sheets, then have the sheets perforated and adhered into pads, similar to a stationery notepad. Wozniak recounts how he had tipped a casino waitress using some $2 bills torn from his custom-made bill pads, only to be questioned by casino security, and eventually the Secret Service, regarding the irregular perforated edges on the otherwise genuine bills."

 

While US currency may be eternally legal, you cannot legally mandate intelligence.
:desk:

 

Yes the new three inch five oz coins will be legally quarters dollars and can be spent as such.

But you will have great difficulty getting them into the vending machine.

 

I dunno, but I love the guy that paid my son $1 at a drive thru using an ASE a couple of weeks ago. Hey, it does say $1 on it! He is well trained to bring home such payments to me.

 

Thanks for the replies!

A slightly different question, are there other countries out there that still accept currency centuries old (now please remember, this is hypothetical, I don't expect people to do this)? The US is quite young compared to a lot of other countries. Now in some countries where their government has been changed, would they accept currency from times of those earlier governments? In Germany, would they still allow Nazi era currency? (I believe swastikas are illegal to show in the country, I could be wrong though)

 

You can still take old banknotes to the Bank of England to be exchanged at face but as most coinage was demonatarized with Decimlization the date for exchange has well past I think the same is true of most member states of the Euro zone, they had a defined period of time to exchange there old cash for the new Euro

 

I was thinking that the cents were never legal tender. That is the whole reason for the 3CS and 3CN because postage at the time was 3 cents. Also no business has to take cash. Try to send amazon.com cash threw the mail. What about all these places that post signs nothing above a 20 accepted?

 

Cents were originally not legal tender. They did not become legal tender until the Coinage Act of 1864 which created the bronze cent and two sent piece. As part of the Act cents were granted legal tender status to the amount of 10 cents. The new two cent pieces were legal tender to the amount of 20 cents. I believe cents stayed at that level until the Legal Tender Act of 1933 at which point the were granted unlimited legal tender status. That status was again confirmed by the Coinage Act of 1965.