I recently saw a debate on this at another forum, and I thought it would be interesting to start the debate here.

Would you like to discontinue the $1 bill and let it be replaced by a $1 coin??

No way!!!

My wallet currently has $12 in it, $7 of that is $1 bills, if those were coins it would be a pain.

Lol, that is a good point. But I have heard of wallets, in places where they have $1 coins, that have a section reserved for coins

I think we need a 1 and 2 dollar coin, and smallest bill be a five. Bills wear out too quickly.

Perhaps even a Sac-size dollar coin is too large, and we certainly don't want people lugging around Ike-sized monstrosities.

Australia has managed to produce $1 and $2 coins without pocket-busting consequences. They also make their currency out of a plastic rather than cloth/paper, so they last longer.

Maybe it's a stange country, even their rather large 50c coins circulate.

Yes, Australian coins are really odd. 1 and 2 cents coins are now way extinct and it's funny how the dollar and the 2 dollar coins are a lot smaller than the massive 50 cents coin. Perhaps the odd one is the 2 dollar coin, as it is just slightly bigger than a 5cent piece but almost thrice as thick... But honestly, there aren't that many countries that are still using 1 dollar bills... canada, uk, europe, australia, new zealand, etc all DON'T use 1 dollar bills!!!

I guess the only main reason why the dollar bill is to stay is because you can seem to pay a lot with dollar bills when tipping and fake the whole scene up

Personally i'd replace all notes with coins, but i think that's got something to do with that time i had to chase a £20 note down the street. T'was a very blustery day that was.

I've been on a mission to convert all notes to coins as fast as i get them. I regularly carry between six and thirteen £1 coins in my pocket most days. £2 are wonderful, wonderful things. I only have the one on me at present.

Whilst i might like carrying around £2, £1, 50p, 20p and 10p coins by the bucket load. I absolutely hate 5p, 2p and 1p coins.


I might also add, i have no wallet, don't like them they can be stolen or lost and bang goes all your money. I tend to throw mine loose in my pockets, £5 here, £3 there, another £2 in a different pocket and a couple of pence in another.

The UK never used a $1 bill. A £1 note maybe but i don't remember those as they were way before my time. Okay i was four when they were demonetised, the most money i ever saw when i was four was perhaps twenty pence. If i was really lucky i'd get a £1 coin.

Actually I prefer the coins They can be used at a toll booth and, Well I just prefer a coin. . .

Actually, the only way to eliminate the One Dollar FRN is to do some 'housekeeping' on the numismatic side first. The One Cent coin needs to stop being produced and allowed to slip out of circulation. Merchants will be encouraged to round their transaction totals, probably up, but how many things do we see for $29.99 and psychologically say to ourselves, "WOW! That is less than thirty bucks!" It is thirty bucks. The rounding will not not significantly increase prices. At most they will rise 4 cents per transaction.

Along with the elimination of the Cent the circulation strikes of the Fifty Cent piece also needs to be discontinued. Mint and Proof set examples can still be made and made profitably for the US Mint, but in actual transactions they are a tiny minority and won't be missed.

Next there needs to be a companion 2 dollar or even 5 dollar coin minted to go along with the currently sluggish 1 dollar coins already in circulation. With the above eliminated coinage, the 1 dollar coin can be re-authorized to the size of the current 50 Cent piece and a 5 dollar coin can be authorized to be the size of the Ike dollars of old.

The age old complaint that the dollar coin is too close in size to the current 25 Cent piece is done away with, and a companion coin is added to help make carrying large denomination coins more economical.

Finally, after all of this is put into place (or as part of a 'get it done now' type mentality) the One Dollar FRN can be eliminated. The seldom used 2 Dollar FRN will probably go by the wayside as well, but business is business, and business must grow.

I dont think the penny will ever go away. Its vital to every day life. When you include tax, what are you going to do when the total is $31.21? You dont have a penny to give them, and you cant give them $31.25 and expect 4 pennies back, because they dont have any either.

Answered in my third sentence.

But sales tax is different in all states. Each store would have to sit down and calculate the prices out perfectly so that when the sales tax was added, it would come out perfect. Sounds unfeasable to me. In 2004, there were 6,836,000,000 pennies minted. Thats more than all the nickels, dimes, quarters, and dollar coins combined minted in 2004. So it doesn't seem like the penny will stop being minted for a long time

I would hate to lose the $1 notes. I also collect $1 star notes. So I VOTE to keep them...

There are star notes for every demonitation

Yes and yes. I'll keep the political bull**** out of it, since this appears to be a survey.

Jerry

really, i didnt know that..... learn something new everyday....

I am for $1, $2 and $5 coins.

When I was a kid, all wallets -- men's and women's -- had coin compartments. All of my suit coats have inner coin pockets. One pair of suit pants does, also. As styles and the value of a dollar changed over time, the coin compartments went away from billfolds that now must accommodate a stack of cards. More than just "credit" cards and ATM cards, I have auto insurance and health insurance cards, library cards, coffee club cards, membership cards ... So, if coins came back, wallets would change to handle them.

The production of cents and the production of paper dollars are both political -- not economic, or even "numismatic" -- issues. Workers would lose their jobs and unions would lose members if the relative stocks of money changed.

Unlike many other nations, ALL of the money of the United States is an asset of the government. (In some nations, only banknotes are real money. In Canada, the situtation is somewhat ambiguous with legal limits on the convertibility of loonies and twonies.) The useless cent is an asset on the books of the government and heaven forbid that we should actually use them to buy government services such as taxes, national park camping tickets, or whatever. As long as they stay in jars, those billions of cents are a loan from us to them.

The reality is that the quarter is the smallest commercially useful coin. Nickels and dimes are sales tax tokens.

Perhaps every cash register checkout I have seen in the last five years or more has a dish for cents. Many have some little sign that says something like "Need a penny? Leave a penny?" Most do not even have that sign because the custom is habitual now.

The rounding will take place after the sales tax. That is what happens now anyway with the 'Need-a-Penny/Take-a-Penny' bowls all over the US. Nothing different except now we will do it with fewer and fewer cents. The cent should not be demonetised, just no longer minted. That will automatically allow for it to be phased out of circulation and let the merchants whom can't make the switch to a 5 cent based system more time to do it.

The numismatic community will benefit from initial increased hoarding of the cents, driving the value of their current inventory temporarily higher, and generating more new coin collector interest by all of the expected media overhype of the loss of the Once Cent piece, even though it will not be a loss but a gradual phase out.

Not if it is going to continue to be a Sac...the second worst looking coin design in U.S. history. (right behind another dollar coin--the Morgan.)

Are you trying to hijack this thread?

I'd favor a coin for $1 and $2.


Like mentioned before, USA is one of the very few countries that still use $1 and $2 notes.

Notes are far moe expensive in use: they wear out a lot faster so they need to be replaced a lot more often than coins.

In the Netherlands, before the euro was introduced, we used to have a 5 gulden note, but it was demonitized and replaced by a coin. At first, many people thought that would be awkward, but in practice it was much more convenient than the note.


About ditching the cent: someone here said that it would only increase a transaction with up to 4 cents if all was rounded up. Well, that's true, but it will increase EVERY transaction with 1 to 4 cents.

Then the struggle with adding tax....
Ive never been to the USA, but have been to Canada and there they have hte same crazy system that taxes are added at the register and are not already included in the prices. so you walk through the store, you add up the prices and in the end you suddenly have to pay a significant amount more, because tax was added.
That system is forbidden in europe. Prices at product in stores and advertisements must list the actual price you have to pay, including taxes. What's the big deal of not mentionin ng the tax as everybody has to pay it anyway?

Two dollar coin!!
Two dollar coin!!

Ditch the paper dollar

Hang on you mean you have jars on the side full of pennies to let people give or take as they please?

Wow if you did that in England those jars would be empty pretty quick. Infact over here they have to put gauze wire over the money fountains to stop people trying to take it back out.

I'm telling you if they had a penny jar on the counter in our stores i'd be swiping ten pennies a day from every one i came across. And i certainly wouldn't leave any... jeeze i even stood at the till for 5 minutes once waiting for my penny change whilst the cashier opened a new bagful into the till.

Pennies make Pounds.

Not a jar, a small tray or bowl with maybe 12 or 30 or so of cents that either customers did not want to bother with as change or had lying in their pockets at the time of payment that they dropped into the till.

Conversely, if a purchase comes to $4.32 and you pay with a 5 dollar note, the cashier will often times take the 2 cents from the tray and return to you 70 cents rather than bothering to count out the two quarters, 1 dime, 1 nickle, and 3 cents needed to return exact change.

And finally, since we still have the right to keep and bear arms we never know who might be packing heat (I always do) so our crime is usually a bit less obvious than what you would attempt, especially away from the urban areas.

Yes! And while we're at it, let's discountinue the $2 bill and replace it with a $2 coin. Let's also eliminate the 1 cent and 50 cent coins.

And there's my 5 cents worth.

As much as I like coins, they're a pain in the neck for doing business. It's easy to carry and conceal several hundred dollars in $1 notes but several hundred in coins would be a load. If the $1 note disappeared, then pricing at cash only markets would jump to $5 increments. We're almost at that point now anyway with inflation and the demise of small notes would push the subsurface economy (such as bazaars and flea markets) the rest of the way.

The dollar coin is probably going to happen pretty soon. I'll deal with it when it does.

Lose the $1 bill, which forces the coin and continue to print $2s. People would adjust and it saves the gov't, i.e. taxpayers, millions each year. Other countries have done it --the US can also. Americans are just to adverse to change, but several polls have shown that when you talk about saving tax dollars then folks are all for it. If Belize can do it, the US can do it.

Ciao, and Hook 'em Horns,
Capt-AWACS, Texas-It's bigger than France

Honestly, I don't understand how much fuss the penny and the dollar coin be. Pennies are amazing annoying, but you know, I guess people still have fun collecting MILLIONS of them in barrels like some recent stories. Honestly, how much copper is just wasted to mint billions of such coins? If you have 100 of those pennies, sure it makes you seem like a rich man for a while but to think how much resources is wasted to make 100 of those, I think it's not worth it. You would rather make 100 $1 dollar and it would be more benefital to the mint.

It is a fact that a coin lasts a lot longer than a paper bill! I mean, a paper bill if heavily circulated, wouldn't last any longer than 4 years in daily transaction, whereas a coin can go up to 10 easily. And seriously considering that, the costs of producing coins are a lot more benefitical than producing the same banknote with the same value over a long period of time. I just don't understand how much more useful 1 dollar bills are nowadays besides tipping and probably fanciful errors. You can always argue that you have 7 or 12 one dollar bills, but what is the point if you can easily have a 5 or 10 dollar bills with 2 $1 coins?

You'd understand if you handled a lot of cash in your business. The most used notes, from the standpoint of merchants in small retail are ones and fives. The most convenient for purchasers are the larger notes. One dollar notes will become impractical only when the dollar takes the place of the cent as the smallest unit of money, not before.

Some are saying keep the $2 bill, why?

The $2 bill is another failure like the Sac dollar ain't it? Might as well replace that with a coin whilst it's out of the running. It'd be easier to replace it now rather than getting a successful $2 bill and then a few years down the line everyone will be saying 'lose the rag $2!'

Coins are the way forward. In a paper/coin argument the coin will always come out on top because they simply last longer and therefore are more versatile. In a coin/plastic argument... plastic would do better.

I think the coin would be nice in varying denominations. It would be neat to know that in a handful of coins I would have a large sum of money vs. carrying a wad of bills. That way if I'm robbed I can throw a handful of coins at the crook vs. handing him my wad of bills.

This may sound silly, but I don't really care if we have bills or coins or both. I seldom use cash and most change I get when I do have cash goes in the piggy banks. I use the ol' check card for everything.

I agree with Tiff. I mostly use my Visa check card. And I get Visa points when I use it

The $2 isn't a failure, per se,(just a victim of design like the 50c) and at current cash/inflation rates the $2 is still effective in paper form. Without a Dollar bill folks will use the Sac and the $2. The concept works well in other places, the gov't just has to put it into place in the USA.

As for the Sac being a failure, not really. The marketing campaign was bad, and the colour is fading, but the transit and postal uses are going strong. If the Dollar bill goes away people will use the sac. Much like the looney in Canada and the pound coin in Britain.

Ciao, and Hook 'em Horns,
Capt-AWACS, Not all pilots are alcoholics, we don't go to meetings

I say keep all the present coined denominations and add $2, $5, $10 & $20 coins. The $10 and $20 could contain a fairly high fineness of silver and still circulate.

Keep the present paper denominations, just don't print as many. {Was that sound the sound of the various BEP Unions flipping out?}

No politician in the US will sign on to any bill removing George from our lives, paper or coin.

Regarding the 'amount' of copper in all those hoarded cents:
Since mid-1982, there's practically no copper in a cent any more. IIRC, they are 99+% zinc with a copper plating. The zinc production industry LOVES it...

Oh, well, just my US$0.02 [2 Zinclons] worth...

You would only have 2 coins...and 2 $5 or 3 coins and 1 $5, 2 $2.

People that think they will be stuck with a wad of coins in their pocket just don't get it.
Take a visit to Canada Ben.

Without the cent prices are rounded up or down..$31.21 would become $31.20.
Cash registers would do it automatically just like they do now with sales tax. You wouldn't even notice.

If I get to the register and find I need a penny I just look down, there's usually a few on the floor.
Take a look on top of the vending machines, people toss pennys on top all the time.
The only people that would really miss cents would be the charitys that rely on them for 1000's of dollars in donations.

Oh. yeah......... Ditch the dollar bill.

Some of us don't have cards though. With me it's either cash or nothing. I suppose i could write a cheque if needs be, but i don't particularly like writing them, it's alot quicker and easier to have over a bagful of £1/£2 coins.


Actually this leads me to the chewing gum argument. Why do people by one pack of chewing gum and then pay for it with a credit card? Drives me up the friggin' wall. Handing over 40p or whatever takes what about a 30 second transaction at most. A card requires waiting for the till's computer to register and check it, then there's the signature thing, hee's your reciept. All in all that takes about 2 to 3 minutes on average. And when you have three people in a queue doing that that about 6-9 minutes in the queue rather than 1 and a half minutes.

Which when catching public transport that only runs every hour can be extremely frustrating... rant over.

I was just voicing my opinion on the dollar coin or dollar bill. The gist is either way it doesn't affect me or people like me much.

(And I don't just go someplace to buy a pack of gum. I wouldn't waste the gas. )

You're wrong about the $2 note. It's an inconvenient denomination and has never been a popular circulating note at any point in history when it was released. The failure of the $2 note has nothing whatsoever to do with the design, it's a matter of the number of denominations necessary for making change in a base 10 numerical system.

I've seen no evidence at all to support your claims about the Sac not being a failure. The design wasn't the problem, nor was the "marketing" strategy. Dollar coins are viewed as clumsy and inconvenient by those of us who use a lot of cash for one simple reason: they truly are clumsy and inconvenient to handle in everyday commerce. Dollar coins are being used almost exclusively in federally owned vending machines and they simply don't circulate besides their little trips from the post office to the banks.

If people liked using $2 notes and $1 coins then those denominations would be popular. They aren't, which should show the hard headed, non cash using proponents of these silly instruments something.

Just as an experiment, how many people here on this thread who favor the $1 coin and the $2 note meet these two conditions:

1. Live and do business in the US
2. Use cash as their primary tender when doing business.

Those who don't meet these two criteria may as well realize that the change they're proposing has been tried repeatedly and has just as repeatedly failed to prove its worth in our monetary system and that failure has been for very sound reasons not based on any stubborness or unreasoned resistance to change on the part of the cash handling public.

Joe, 2 answers...

1) When this situation is encountered in Mexico (the only country I've visited that has this issue) the merchant will round the tax up to the next 10 centavos and then give "change" back as little candies.

2) When you buy gas the price isn't even cents, so what do you do when the amount you owe is $5.251? Well, the gas statin solves this problem for you by rounding up to the next cent and charging you $5.26. You accept it and it isn't a problem and the same would happen if the cent was eliminated.

-"You're wrong about the $2 note. It's an inconvenient denomination and has never been a popular circulating note at any point in history when it was released. The failure of the $2 note has nothing whatsoever to do with the design, it's a matter of the number of denominations necessary for making change in a base 10 numerical system."-


Actually I am not, you have fallen prey to a bit of overdone false history in the numismatic field. Certain areas of the country used the two in great demand, especially the midwest in the late 19th and early 20th century. The two was used to pay workers in the oil fields for years, for example.
Change in a base 10 is easy as 2 works into that just fine. By that argument the 20 dollar bill should be a failure, but it is not. Unlike the Cayman islands we do not have a $25 bill.

-"I've seen no evidence at all to support your claims about the Sac not being a failure. "-
Then you are not looking or researching in the right places. The Sac didn't replace the Dollar bill, but the gov't knew that was not going to happen. It is working in the billets it was meant to fill.

-" The design wasn't the problem, nor was the "marketing" strategy. Dollar coins are viewed as clumsy and inconvenient by those of us who use a lot of cash for one simple reason: they truly are clumsy and inconvenient to handle in everyday commerce. "-

Unless you are going to a lot of strip clubs this is not true (and even in strip clubs in Canada and Europe the single coins work GREAT--more fun actually). Without being to much of a cultural snob, I've seen the dollar coins work fine in commerce on 7 continents, get out and look at these areas. American's fear change because they are, overall, lazy and uncultured. One could take that logic and say quarters are failures, are they clumsy?
Two seperate studies by the gov't showed the marketing campaign for the SAC failed, and the Wal-Mart release and term "Golden" caused people to hoard at higher rates than the SBA introduction.


-" Dollar coins are being used almost exclusively in federally owned vending machines and they simply don't circulate besides their little trips from the post office to the banks."-

And in mass transit and plenty of other places. I used them all the time in the states

-" If people liked using $2 notes and $1 coins then those denominations would be popular. They aren't, which should show the hard headed, non cash using proponents of these silly instruments something. "-
This is cart before horse logic. The gov't can lose the $2 bill as well if you like and have no $2 coin or use one, but the dollar bill is a waste compared to a coin. As a taxpayer it bothers me when the gov't wastes money. People will not stop spending if we only have coins, in fact studies show coins are more likely to be spent than dollar bills. $50 dollar bills are not popular, should we get rid of them? $100s are not popular and in fact not accepted at many establishments, should they go to?

-" Just as an experiment, how many people here on this thread who favor the $1 coin and the $2 note meet these two conditions:

1. Live and do business in the US
2. Use cash as their primary tender when doing business. "-

I do-- though I am leaving the US. How many people have used dollar coins in countries that don't have single bills?
Me and millions of others.



-" Those who don't meet these two criteria may as well realize that the change they're proposing has been tried repeatedly and has just as repeatedly failed to prove its worth in our monetary system"-

NO actually it hasn't, as both have been allowed to circulate together. You may think that people are then choosing the bills over coins, but basic human study shows people do not want change[sic] (no pun intended) and will stick to the status quo when given a choice in mannerism.

-" and that failure has been for very sound reasons not based on any stubborness or unreasoned resistance to change on the part of the cash handling public."-
See above, basic academic study shows otherwise, and the savings to taxpayers alone would make people more likely to favour it.

Ciao, and Hook 'em Horns,
Capt-AWACS, I've been called worse

There's the main thrust of your argument. I took the liberty of condensing it for you. So long. Enjoy wherever you end up.

So you have no answer to anything posted. Allow me to condense your response- you are in 4th grade...I addressed every piece of your post in my reply quotes and you try one sentence because your assumptions were so invalid? Nice.

As for me going back to Iraq and Qatar (I appreciate your concern about my travels as noted above BTW)- I do like the tax free money but will not enjoy it, per se. I do look forward to living back in Maastricht as NATO flights are more fun the USAF ones and worth more money!

Again Your 4th grade debate tactics are fairly weak kid. Try answering the question at hand next post.

EDIT-typoo

Ciao, and Hook 'em Horns,
Capt-AWACS, Seven continents down, none to go

That's my thought. Until the switch to the Euro, Germany did pretty well by having mainly a 5DM coin circulating, but also with a 5DM note in circulation, but in much smaller numbers.

a slow "death" for the bill would be okay (unless you are at the strip clubs with 28plain who is still silent here, shocking) if you mean 2-3 years-- though I think 12 months would be a better timeframe, and economically would be the best looking at markets, rates, consumer spending, etc. Most vending machines now take the dollar coins and other items could be retooled quickly. Spending is projected to increase with a dollar coin, according a recent Stanford study, by up to 20% so the coin only option cannot come soon enough. The change, no pun intended, has gone well in every other country so hopefully it can be done in the US sooner rather than later.

Ciao, and Hook 'em Horns,
Capt-AWACS, Texas, It's bigger than France

Personally, I like it the way it is. I see no reason to mandate the use of one over another.

As some of you know my other hobby is metal detecting. Each year my finds total about $300. I read on the detecting forums about people north of the border passing the $1000 mark every year. The reason? Loonies and Toonies. Not bad even with the exchange.

Bring on the dollar coins!!