The obsolescence of cash has been a standard prediction for decades. I don't think coins and paper money will ever become truly obsolete. I mean, what are we going to use for illegal gambling? Illicit drugs? Hookers?
RIP the Canadian penny
- Thread starter 23skidoo
- Start date
The small sized dollar coin failures include the Susan B. Anthony first minted in 1979 (hideous design, but consider the subject) and the Sacajawea (begun at the time of the State quarters program). The typical dollar note lasts 18 months in circulation till it wears out, but a coin will last decades. The coins have some popularity with collectors, but don't really circulate. One of the proposed uses for the coin would have been in the vending machine industry. They didn't want to get on board with the coin, because of the adjustments needed to their machines.
It seems change (ha, ha) is something folks don't like.
I suppose if the gov't wants to save money, it will have to look elsewhere.
Last edited:
Can see when the vending machine companies are coming from. The Canadian mint made changes to the metallurgical make up the coins here and it's paid merry hell with vending machines.
and yet men in Canada, Australia and the U.K with $/£1 and $/£2 coins in the place of notes.
And I get that. But it just seems like one more thing to carry around. If we switched to $1 coin, I would simply stop carrying around anything less than a $5 bill. My $1 coins would end up in jars just like all of my other loose change.
And I almost wonder if the tipping culture in the US is another reason for why we don't switch. Most people who tip servers and bartenders leave singles. At the end of a night of waiting tables, most servers end up with a giant wad of $1 bills in their pocket. The logistics of dealing with that many coins just sounds like a nightmare to me. We literally don't have anywhere to put them!
I love my cash. If I'm paying with cash, it means I don't have to take anything out of my bank account.
^ You had to take money out of your account to get the cash. 
Eliminating it just cuts out the middleman, as it were. And it eliminates the problem of "change".
Eliminating it just cuts out the middleman, as it were. And it eliminates the problem of "change".
It might become inevitable. Dollar bills are becoming too expensive to produce because of how short their viable life in circulation is. Coins would last years longer and cost us less in the long run.
But since I don't keep money in my wallet at all I don't see it as an inconvenience switching to a coin.
I use these crazy things called pockets.The logistics of dealing with that many coins just sounds like a nightmare to me. We literally don't have anywhere to put them!
^ You had to take money out of your account to get the cash.
Not as a bartender, I didn't. That cash never even saw the bank.
Well, and that's the thing. It depends on how you're used to making your money. Many people these days only use credit cards. I, personally, only use cash because for the most part I get paid in cash.
All coins are pretty much obsolete in my life anyway. I don't carry them around. They end up in a jar, and I deposit them when the jar gets full. A $1 coin would just end up in the jar with the rest of the coins I'm not using.
And I get that. But it just seems like one more thing to carry around. If we switched to $1 coin, I would simply stop carrying around anything less than a $5 bill. My $1 coins would end up in jars just like all of my other loose change.
And I almost wonder if the tipping culture in the US is another reason for why we don't switch. Most people who tip servers and bartenders leave singles. At the end of a night of waiting tables, most servers end up with a giant wad of $1 bills in their pocket. The logistics of dealing with that many coins just sounds like a nightmare to me. We literally don't have anywhere to put them!
Perhaps it's just me, but how is dealing with a coin any different than dealing with a note logistically.
In the case of tipping, at the end of the night you just exchange coins for notes. You get a note, and your place of work gets coins to use as change the following day.
I remember the £1 note in the UK, and I suspect some of the same arguments were used. You simply adapt over a period of time. It's not like it would happen over night it would be phased in over several years (i.e. 5 years)with both coins and notes in circulation. But each year you print fewer and fewer notes. and from a set date you say the note will no longer be legal tender in places of buinsess (Banks will still accept them).
And I get that. But it just seems like one more thing to carry around. If we switched to $1 coin, I would simply stop carrying around anything less than a $5 bill. My $1 coins would end up in jars just like all of my other loose change.
And I almost wonder if the tipping culture in the US is another reason for why we don't switch. Most people who tip servers and bartenders leave singles. At the end of a night of waiting tables, most servers end up with a giant wad of $1 bills in their pocket. The logistics of dealing with that many coins just sounds like a nightmare to me. We literally don't have anywhere to put them!
Perhaps it's just me, but how is dealing with a coin any different than dealing with a note logistically.
In the case of tipping, at the end of the night you just exchange coins for notes. You get a note, and your place of work gets coins to use as change the following day.
Just the sheer number of them would make it obnoxious. Depending on the night, one server could potentially have $100 worth of coins jangling around in his pocket. As a bartender, my tip jar could have the same or more. It's just so much easier to paperclip a stack of bills than it would be to organize and wrap the same number of coins.
I'm not saying it would be impossible, but it would be incredibly inconvenient.
I am, of course, biased because of the industry I work in, but we use so many $1 bills that I don't even want to imagine how annoying it would be to replace them with coins. I don't want to be counting hundreds of coins at the end of the night.
You do know you can buy machines that count coins. And I work in industry that deals with moneym and how is counting hundreds of coins any different to counting hundreds of notes?
Yiu simply adap to counting coins. Coins last longer than notes as has already been mentioned the lower the denomination of note the shorter the life span. I've seen coins that are over 30 years old still in circulation.
The biggest hurdle is coin operated machines might have to be serviced so that they accept the 1.00 denomination. Easy for new ones as you build it in, older ones might need the coin mechanisim replacing which is why you have say a five year phase out.
Yiu simply adap to counting coins. Coins last longer than notes as has already been mentioned the lower the denomination of note the shorter the life span. I've seen coins that are over 30 years old still in circulation.
The biggest hurdle is coin operated machines might have to be serviced so that they accept the 1.00 denomination. Easy for new ones as you build it in, older ones might need the coin mechanisim replacing which is why you have say a five year phase out.
If you rely on tips for part of your compensation you should actually welcome a switch to $1 coins for exactly the same response you are saying you don't want to see the change: convenience. People will be much more likely to leave behind all those coins where they would have taken the bills.
I carry a supply of coins in a prescription pill bottle in my pocket. Makes a great poor man's change purse.
The Susan B. Anthony dollar was seemingly designed to fail, being so much like the quarter. The loonie and toonie, on the other hand, were sensibly conceived.
What I found in Canada was that I didn't have as much loose change because I didn't have to search both my wallet and pockets when paying. By just checking my pockets for loonies and toonies I also would spend my other change as it was all together. I think, for me at least, the reason I have so much change in the US is I don't feel like looking for change in my pockets after getting the bills from my wallet.
It was also nice to leave my wallet while bike riding but still be able to have some money for snacks.
Well, because currently I do it by hand. We don't have a machine for counting money.
I'm picturing the number of $1 bills that I count on a regular basis as a pile of coins, and suddenly I feel like I'm buried in a mountain of silver.
How many dollar coins can you even fit in a standard cash register? There are times when I have $200-300 in singles in my drawer. I feel like my drawer would overflow.
Last edited: