Coins lost as no value.

New item on "gotta do" list for ANA Anaheim. Three weeks baby! (Departure date.)

 

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Yeah, I saw that earlier... but it doesn't make it right.

 

I'd just Google it on my phone and show them.

 

The new presidential dollars. It was an older issue that I found in a drawer among my socks. At least it wasn't in my clean underwear drawer. :>)

 

I think we've reached a 'point of no return' with regards to dollar coins. Cash is being used less and less due to the growing use of electronic payment methods (ApplePay, Google Wallet, PayPal, etc). At this point the benefits of producing costlier dollar bills (due to their shorter lifespan) outweighs the cost benefit of coins. Much more convenient to handle paper. If the trend was reversed and cash usage was growing, I would say it makes more sense to make dollar coins only.

 

I just think the dollar coins have been fighting a losing battle all along... the government has been trying to push them on us for years, and people just aren't biting. Not putting dates on them only made this problem worse as it lessens coin collector interest in them.

 

Wait, not putting dates on them? Look on the "third side". The dates are there.

 

Haven't you heard? They pass them out in birthing rooms at some hospitals.

 

Some of the stupidest people in the world are elementary school teachers........and some of the most brilliant and gifted teach high school. Sorry. Just an observation from past experience.

 

Parents are very lazy. Especially admitting to a socially unacceptably child. Not necessarily universally, just bad on their part. After all; your little child can do no harm. You have accomplished this on your part alone.

 

The only reason its a losing battle is because the politicians bent to the cotton industry and refuse to stop issuing dollar bills. No country on earth has been successful having coins and bills in the same denomination equally popular, yet our idiots still try.

 

I lived just South of Paris TN, for quite a few years.
I think the south is nothing but small towns.

 

Can't blame them. $10 face of Morgans will wear a hole in your pocket right quick. A few years back I carried that for a while, and couldn't stand the amount of weight in my pocket. It literally made me feel unbalanced.

That was the true appeal of gold coins - you could carry a relevant value on your person without a back brace.

 

This is true, of course. But people always wanted a ten-cent coin with less than one-tenth the weight, and a 25-cent coin with less than one-quarter the weight; such coins circulated until they were slick.

What do you suppose people would want now, though, if they stopped to think about it -- now that a dollar is closer to the buying power of those old ten-cent coins, but pocket size and fabric strength are much the same as ever?

Personally, I think it's moot; cash, especially change, will be irrelevant within my lifetime (and I'm old enough to be a grandfather). I'd be happy to be proven wrong, of course -- as long as it's not by shortening my lifespan!

 

But how much did gold coins really "circulate"? It seems to me that most people don't (and didn't) want to routinely carry "relevant value", enough to buy a horse or a car, in a form that's easily lost or stolen.

It also seems like there would always be more transactions of low value, and fewer of high value, meaning low-value coins would get more exercise. (Not relevant today, when all coins issued for circulation are "low-value".)

 

They have never really tried to push them onto us. If they had really want to push them on us they would have discontinued the dollar note. They have always maintained the fiction that they could both co-circulate even though history has shown that was a pipedream. We have had small size dollars since 1979, do you know when they made the FIRST attempt to actually push them on us by eliminating the dollar bill? 2014! And the bill was introduced on the last day of the session so it died when they adjourned. Not much of a push.

I do question this a bit. I suspect they WERE popular (or at least more popular) from about 1840 to 1850. No proof, just reasoning. Before 1840 they weren't available. From 1840 to 1850 they were available and all the paper money in circulation was private bank currency, much of it of very questionable and fluctuating value (even worthless). So if you had a choice of questionable paper, or a heavy dollar coin of known full value and quality, which would you rather have? You would want the dollar coin.

Around 1850 though the value of the silver in the coin increased and now every time you spent one you were taking a loss. Sure be nice to receive, but you don't want to spend them yet can't afford to hold them. (Dollar was a lot of money) After 1862 Federal paper money became available. During the war it was questionable, but afterward it became a more acceptable and convenient way of carrying dollars. and that spelled the end of dollar coin acceptance as long as paper dollars were available.

 

Well, you may carry $100 in your wallet at all times, but that's not because you plan on spending $100 in cash every day. So you're right - gold didn't "circulate" as much as silver minors in terms of number of transactions - but if you wanted to carry $20 in a day when paper money wasn't extant, gold makes a bunch more sense than silver.

The degree of difference in the America of that day compared to the America of 2016 was far greater. One wouldn't expect folks in rural areas to be carrying much gold, of course, but the more affluent city dwellers would.

 

Just a different aspect of the same problem.

In the UK they have been issuing GBP 5 coins as commemoratives for some years (since 1991 I think). These are marked with the words "Five pounds" on them, and for many years have been spendable as such, with the banks obliged to accept them. This has been a good collecting point as you can usually pick them up for face or a little over, and you have always been safe in that you could cash them in if necessary. (Of course small traders may have turned their noses at them for lack of knowledge, but the banks and post office were a safe bet.)
Recently the rules as laid out on the Royal Mint website have changed. They are still described as "Legal Tender" however they state that banks and the post office are no longer obliged to accept them! If this does not contradict the term "Legal Tender" I don't know what does!
Some banks are still accepting them, but others are refusing along with most Post Offices.
Grrrrr!