One of the big reasons we can't get rid of any coins or bills is that there are two different bureaucracies involved.

The US Mint makes coins, and the 1 cent and 5 cent coins are their biggest jobs. Without those a much smaller organization could handle things.

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Printing and Engraving makes bills, and the $1 and $5 are their biggest jobs.

So when we tried to introduce $1 coins (twice in my lifetime), the Bureau of Printing and Engraving kept right on printing $1 bills, and the bills dominated inside the USA (Ecuador at least uses the coins, I'm not sure about other dollarized non-USA countries).

If it were one organization, they could eliminate the penny and nickle (and dime if I had my way), and introduce a $1, $2, and $5 coins, and stop printing small bills. Slightly less business, because they'd no longer be wasting money on the smallest coins, but they'd probably keep their current staff with no trouble. With two separate organizations, the one that eliminates anything is just losing jobs.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Friday, August 25, 2023 - 12:52 pm: Edit

The easiest way to eliminate the need for so many pennies and nickles would be to add the tax into items before a price tag was put on it....
Round everything up to an even number....
Current registers should have no problem separating the tax when the final tally is done each shift/day...

Saw too many customers (mainly 20 something females) who carried no cash/change at all (ugh)...
After seeing items (gum etc) which were less than a dollar put on cards, I can see why businesses have gone to making the customer (3%) pay the charge....

By Joseph Jackson (Bonneville) on Friday, August 25, 2023 - 01:07 pm: Edit

Let's not forget the Illinois state Lincoln lobby. They like their favorite presidents image in copper relief. They've blocked a bill or two to end the penny.
I'm a collector, so as much as I like the penny, the ones I got would be worth more if the supply dried up.
I think however, that there's as much chance of getting rid of the penny as there is a chance of congress adopting fiscal responsibility, reducing debt and setting the nation on a path that made the penny worth something again.

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Friday, August 25, 2023 - 01:11 pm: Edit

The meaningful introduction of 1/2/5 dollar coins would probably be beneficial to vending machine based businesses.

The 1/2/5 dollar coins would also wear out much more slowly than the paper bills, thus most likely sharply slowing the pace at which banks need to collect the worn out low denomination bills and submit them for replacement.

--Mike

By Warren Mathews (Turtle) on Friday, August 25, 2023 - 03:33 pm: Edit

The problem with the Susan B Anthony $1 coin was it was almost identical in size the quarter even though there were physical differences on the coin itself for "supposedly" easier identification.

That said, having lived in Germany for 2 1/2 years I never had a problem with the difference in Marks and whatever other coins they had. The same goes for the British pound and pence coins when I visited London.

Look at your tax returns. On my 1990 1040 it has dollars and cents on all the lines except for Tax I had to pay for that year. Later returns including 2012 and later, and probably earlier returns beginning around 97 or 98 when I switched to tax software for returns they used rounded dollars on every line.

I don't spend a lot of pennys and when I pay for things in cash, all the change I get back goes in to my change jar that I cash in before a vacation to have extra cash on hand for various things. Even so, I wouldn't mind seeing the penny go away.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Friday, August 25, 2023 - 06:20 pm: Edit

Dogecoin or a big X on the back.

Just being funny.


Actually John Wong and I were discussing this very thing at Strat Con because Canada DID eliminate their .01 coin. It really hasn't had an effect on the people (they don't seem to care after all).

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Friday, August 25, 2023 - 07:05 pm: Edit

Every once in a while, I send a letter who whatever feckless functionary holds my local Congressional district seat, noting that given a 30-year circulation life for the average coin versus an 18-month circulation life for a banknote, and the relative manufacturing costs, the U.S. could save upwards of $100 million a year by switching to a dollar coin.

I always get a form letter back from said feckless functionary of the moment.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, August 25, 2023 - 10:44 pm: Edit

Don’t forget the powerful lobby for exotic dance clubs. Hard to tip a dancer with $1 and $5 coins.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Saturday, August 26, 2023 - 10:04 am: Edit

But potentially more entertaining....

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Saturday, August 26, 2023 - 12:46 pm: Edit

Strategically placed tape with bullseyes..

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Sunday, August 27, 2023 - 08:43 am: Edit

So this piqued my curiosity enough to look into it.

In Australia (which hasn't had a $1 bill since 1984), it's the norm to buy what amounts to "strip club play money" from the bar, which is used to tip the performers and which they can redeem for actual money at the end of the night.

In Canada (which did away with the $1 bill in 1986 and the $2 bill a decade later), there's a few takes on it:
* That you toss loonies ($1 coins) and toonies ($2 coins) on the stage;
* That you throw them directly at the performers (primarily an Alberta thing); and
* That you tip with a $5 bill or better instead of being a cheap b******.

By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Sunday, August 27, 2023 - 09:46 pm: Edit

That $100 million goes into the economy of congressional districts, providing jobs to voters and their families. The same reason it is hard to cut a lot of things in the federal budget.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Sunday, August 27, 2023 - 10:16 pm: Edit

Yeah, I'm pretty sure $1 was traditional when I was in elementary school. I suppose I could ask my father if I really cared.

In 1977 I was no longer in elementary school, and the 1977 dollar had more purchasing power than the current 5. If you're going to a strip club, carry fives.

Added: That money really isn't spread amoung multiple congresional districts, the Mint has multiple offices, but I think that Printing and Engraving does all the bill production in DC.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Sunday, August 27, 2023 - 10:29 pm: Edit

Bill production is also done in Ft Worth Texas. The DC presses are moving to Maryland in the next several years.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, August 28, 2023 - 02:22 am: Edit

Speaking of pennies, you can find any number you want on Internet, but about 10 billion per year seems the middle of the ball park. So paying $50,000 to make a million pennies is a drop in the bucket. We need Ford Motor Company to sponsor a billion pennies.

Let's see....

10,000,000,000 one-cent coins
at 5 cents each to sponsor a corporate logo...
50,000,000,000 cents for the year.
500,000,000 dollars for the year.
So maybe a billion is a sponsorship contract, costing the advertiser $50-million.
There should be plenty of slop to cover the cost of the die.

By Warren Mathews (Turtle) on Monday, August 28, 2023 - 05:57 am: Edit

---

Quote:

Actually John Wong and I were discussing this very thing at Strat Con because Canada DID eliminate their .01 coin. It really hasn't had an effect on the people (they don't seem to care after all).

---

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Monday, August 28, 2023 - 07:36 am: Edit

I say price everything to the dime level. And just eliminate pennies and nickels.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Monday, August 28, 2023 - 07:44 am: Edit

Mike,
That part is easy...
Then you add sales tax which varies in every state, from around 5% (with lots of 10ths) to over 10% in some areas (State, County, City)....
Whole thing is a royal mess....

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Monday, August 28, 2023 - 01:35 pm: Edit

Your purchase will be rounded off, because it already is. If U buy a 99 cent item, they apply 9.5% sales tax, then the register rounds off because I can't pay $1.08405, which is what that comes to if I make that purchase today.

On the other hand:
When I buy gasoline, the taxes are included in the price, but the price is in mills. 3.499 or something like that. So again, you buy, and it rounds off automatically.

Everyone who shops has been having this sort of thing done on most purchases for years. Shifting from round to the nearest cent to round to the nearest nickle is barely even a software change. Prices could all stay exactly where they are, and it wouldn't surprise me a bit if they did, charging $9.99 is a marketing ploy. People aren't confused by gas prices or fractional precent sales taxes, they wouldn't be confused by cent prices in a world with no 1 cent coins.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, August 28, 2023 - 02:56 pm: Edit

Maybe we should recalibrate the currency, issuing "new dollars" that are x10 the old ones. The coins in circulation would remain the same. Thus a penny becomes equivalent to the buying power of 1/10 of and "old dollar"?

Wait, didn't another country try this once? Zimbabwe maybe?

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Monday, August 28, 2023 - 03:13 pm: Edit

Lots of countries have redenominated their currency by knocking off some zeroes.

Mexico knocked off 3 in 1993. South Korea 2 in 1954. Israel 1 in 1980 and 3 in 1986. France 2 in 1960 and Finland 2 in 1963. There's a huge table with something like 153 entries at the bottome of the Wikipedia page for redenomination (not all entries due to inflation, some are currency unions or other changes that require redenominating but not neccessarily to reduce the number of zeroes).

Zimbabwe is one of the more notable cases where this was done and failed. They knocked off 3 zeroes in 2006 (amazingly prior to actually releasing their new national currency), 10 zeroes in 2008, 12 zeroes in 2009, and then "dollarized" in 2009 dropping their local currency altogether.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Tuesday, August 29, 2023 - 07:48 am: Edit

I like the Hungarians. A "Quintillion."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Tuesday, August 29, 2023 - 11:38 am: Edit

SVC, a quick, "Gut" thought suggests that, if we actually DO the revaluation of currency here in the `States, then new coins might be designed of a different physical scale and structure, perhaps?

New "One-Cent" coins can be based on our current dimes (both in terms of size and structure), but methinks new coins might have to be different enough for quick recognition...

Again, this is just a quick "Gut Thought," and is probably worth less than the usual 0.02... Excuse me 0.002 Quatloos.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, August 29, 2023 - 01:43 pm: Edit

I was trying to avoid new coins.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Tuesday, August 29, 2023 - 01:59 pm: Edit

If the government stays on their kick to go totally to cards, then they need to prohibit charging to use them (seller and buyer).....
I believe businesses can write the charges off on taxes, with the new system where buyers pay, I should be keeping try and file those on my taxes from now on...