Are commemorative coins legal tender if there is a denomination on them? If they are, I could see the coins being rejected by merchants who do not recognize the coin. That being said, our money no matter what form is legal tender for all debts, public, and private. So would the merchant be breaking the law if they reject such a coin? David
Yes, they are legal tender. No, the merchant doesn't 'have' to accept any of your money; they can opt to only take silver in trade or their personally minted currency if they choose to.
Depends upon which country you're in does that. Mostly yes though, but like gold sovereigns are legal tender for £1, doubt you'd want to spend one though, although in this case the guy at the other side might want to take it.
I know of a guy in my area who paid for $20 worth of gas with two 10-dollar gold coins. The attendant didn't realize what their value was, and sold them to a customer for face value.
This is not exactly true. You have to be careful. It is in fact illegal to make any coin that is to be passed as "money" but it is allowed to make your own paper money and it is allowed to make tokens that are good for money or exchangible for goods and services directly.
Sure, of course it has to be 'backed' by something, just like the FRB 'backs' the dollar. Nothing precludes you from creating a denomitation system for this backed currency. Take the Liberty Dollar as an example, it's an arbitrary currency backed by Silver. As long as you don't claim your currency is backed by the FRB, you're A-OK.
Speaking of tokens (Mike mentioned it) here are pictures of tokens minted by my favourite coin dealer. Sorry about the lighting, they are silver. My photography skills leave a lot to be desired.
Many of the early commems were dumped into circulation after failing to sell for the premiums the Mint was seeking. These were easily used in transactions. Up until 1909, the citizens of this country were quite used to seeing different designs. I would think that you would be hard pressed to spend a commem in this day, but they are legal tender. Same for all the Eagles. Each carry a denomination.
Yep. They sure are. The only catch is, you can't get them from the issuing government for their stated value. Can you spell s-c-a-m? Nope. A merchant doesn't have to accept any form of payment that he doesn't want to. Also, coin collectors have the right to reject any of the non-circulating "commemoratives" that the Mint offers for sale.
