Dollar
There was a lot of talk last week about another set of dollar coins being introduced by the US Mint. The new coins will feature past presidents on the front in yearly sets of four. This is after dollar coins featuring Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea.
Dollar coins don’t bother me. I can see the utility in them and kind of think they are cool. I’m neither a stripper nor a food server so I rarely have more than five $1 bills in my pocket. I would never let it go higher than that if they were coins instead of bills.
In Germany, if I remember correctly, they only have coins for the 1 and 5 Deutsch Mark. Every European country that I have visited has been similar when it comes to low denomination currency. In those countries, food servers carry around a change purse about the size of a sandwich. You pay the entire bill to them and they make change for you at the table. There is none of this back-and-forth with money, or waiting at a cash register. I think they also have automatic gratuities there.
On the day that the new set of dollar coins was revealed, news organizations reported the story with zeal. One of the common reasons reported on why dollar coins are never successful in circulation is that, when people receive them as change, they go straight into some type of piggy bank never to be seen again.
I disagree. I think that people are afraid to give them out as change. I had a bunch many years ago, too many coins to handle, and I took them to the bank. The teller groaned in a joking manner. “I hate these things.” I guess no bank customer wants to receive dollar coins in payment.
Sometimes, if I am receiving change and I notice that the register tray has some dollar coins in it, I volunteer to the cashier to receive them as my change, to get them off of his or her hands. They are always happy. Then I take them and spend them somewhere else. I have only received a dollar coin for change one time without asking, outside of a vending machine or a post office, and that was at the Chevron Station downtown. It didn’t bother me any. Whenever I received dollar coins as payment when I was a cashier many moons ago, I would give them as change to kids because they would never complain.
What usually happens to dollar coins is not that they sit in someone’s sock drawer for eternity, it is that cashiers never give them as change. There is an abundance of dollar bills in circulation; what possible reason could you have to hand a dollar coin out as change to a customer besides just trying to get rid of them yourselves. So, dollar coins go from customer to bank to post office vending machine and back to customer, unless someone like me gets it and hands it off to another business. Then, it is just a small interruption of the above described chain.
The US government should just make less dollar bills and more dollar coins. People would spend them just the same. Dollar bills are nothing but ratty pieces of paper anyways. They only last a few years while coins last for forty plus.
November 25th, 2006 at 18:24
As a woman, I hate coins, so the new dollar coin will not be used by me. But I do think they are neat and my spouse collects some of the recently minted coins. So, he will probably get any that come my way.
November 26th, 2006 at 18:24
You’re gonna have to use the dollar coin sometime Dusty. What do you do when you get them as change at the post office?
November 26th, 2006 at 20:39
It’s not a purse, really…It’s European! -The famous Seinfeld quote.
Anyway, I miss the coin denominations of the deutsch mark and the Euro. Pocket change aside, it’s nice to know ‘the weight’ in your pocket as opposed to ‘the weight’ in your ass! Paper money has the tendancy to burn, but not coins. The Americans lose sight of this very concept. Coins should be more prevelant.
November 27th, 2006 at 17:00
Dollar coins are much bigger in Europe.
November 27th, 2006 at 17:21
Dollar coins, or five dollar coins Bake?
November 28th, 2006 at 11:46
Germany had the D-Mark coins in 1, 2 and 5 DM amounts. I believe the Euro has the same denominations. In 3 years of living in Germany, I saw a total of two 5 DM bank notes.
I still have a 5 DM note as I collect foreign bank notes. I believe they were as rare as the American 2 dollar bill.
Tipping in Germany was a lot easier, as you pointed out Sonic. Instead of a circus of transactions, The Frau lady waitress would say, or write down your total, but only after you ask for the check. Then you would tip the waitress by saying “Let’s call it 10DM, keep the change”, if your bill was 9 and you wanted to tip her 1 Mark.
Tips weren’t always expected and it was rude to tip a huge amount, say anything over 15% of the bill or just a few Marks.
The first week I was in Germany, I thought I was being smooth by tipping like a German in the aforementioned fashion, to impress the hot young Fraulein waitress. I tried to give her a tip that was around 18- 20% of the check and she got pissed and said something to the effect of “I’m not poor, you jackass show off”. My buddy then explained, after saying “That hit the SPOT.”, that waitresses in Germany didn’t have to work for peanut wages and pray for tips like in the USA
November 28th, 2006 at 11:58
I love dollar coins! I wish I had more of them.
My boss takes his kids to Catalina every year and gets $500 in dollar coins. (The gold looking ones) and he passes those out to the kids all week as their spending money. He calls it their treasure.
I wish more dollar coins were in circulation.
November 28th, 2006 at 21:13
Hoat: Good to see you back here motherfucker.
Spot Hit - good nickname for our old friend, and I’m not talking about Mike Jones. You know, I hardly saw any 5DM notes either, but I was only there for a fraction of the time you were. It’s the same story in Russia if I remember correctly. Virtually no 5 RUB, all coins. Only the US has such an aversion to coin currency.
Matildakay: Really, if the US Mint is not going to totally switch over to dollar coins in one fell swoop, they should start to do it incrementally. I think people think of receiving dollar coins as change as some sort of rude act. Why me? Why did that other guy get dollar bills?
If I could get 100 dollar coins, I would go drinking at the sleaziest bar in Bakersfield with them. What is the sleaziest bar in Bakersfield?
November 28th, 2006 at 23:01
Hey I used a dollar coin tonight at the 7-11! The Buckhorn could be in the running for sleaziest bar in Bakersfield.
November 28th, 2006 at 23:21
True. I was thinking The Chateau across from Floyd’s.
May 24th, 2007 at 12:08
in the uk there are no £1 notes there are £1 and £2 coins and then special ocasion £5 coins for the queens anniversary or something