January 28, 2006

Coin of the PC Realm

CHAD EVERETT @ Don't Back Down: Rustle or Jingle is asking about the fact that the dollar coin has not replaced the dollar bill.

The long term cost [of the Sacagawea Dollar coin] is lower, the hassle factor is lower, the speed is faster. Yet dollar bills are still far more prevalent in the US than dollar coins. Why is that, exactly?
He's gathered a few interesting responses in his comments and yet they don't quite get to the real reason: People just don't like them.

Case in point: While waiting in line at the Laguna Beach Post Office to speak to a clerk, a woman came in and rustled to the front to ask a question. She was clutching this bronze object that at first glance seemed to be a quarter, but was of course the dreaded dollar coin. She'd been purchasing stamps from the PO's vending machine with paper money and had been given several dollar coins in change from the machine.

She then decided that she needed a few more stamps and had tried to use the dollar coins. But of course the machine that gave them to her wasn't configured to accept them. This, needless to say, peeved her. But since today the US Post Office exists only to drive customers away and put itself out of business by 2010, the clerks only shrugged and went back to their SOP of imitating every slo-mo work film you've ever seen. The hapless woman interrupted them again and asked if she could please have some dollar bills for the coins so she could use the stamp machine. The clerk said, "We're not supposed to give bills for the coins, but we can give coins for the bills." There were about 12 people waiting in the snake line for the clerk and I think I saw each and every one slump down and despair at this perfect government employee epiphany. The woman just shook her head and made for the exit.

She was stuck with the dollar coins and, regardless of the coin's politically correct choice of an heroic pre-Native-American-Woman on the face, she went away mumbling and grumbling, not feeling chipper about the post office or Sacagawea. Alas, she'd not seen the last of the deadening effects of this stamp machine/post office bait and switch. She'd see more when she tried to spend the coins.

I've seen it and, if you have ever had the misfortune to get a few of these useless exercises in "efficient money," you've seen it too. You try to buy something with them and there's always this bit of hesitation from a clerk as you slip them three dollar coins for a $2.75 purchase.

They gaze in rapt wonder and then look up with a sidelong glance as if you are trying to pull a fast one. You offer that the coins are dollars and instruct them to read the coin carefully. (This is especially difficult if your choice with the clerk is to continue in English or in Spanish.) In time, there's a moment when the light dawns on them , but the suspicion is not really removed. Then, grudgingly, sure they'll have to make up the shortfall when they cash out, they accept them and give you a quarter in change.

The quarter is pretty much like the dollar except that it has a different color. The other difference is that everybody pretty much likes, or accepts without question, the quarter, but nobody is easy with the dollar. And nobody likes to get the dollar back from the clerk as change. I don't know about you but whenever it happens to me, I slide them back and ask for bills. They took them and now they are the store's problem.

Nevertheless, as Everett points out, the dollar is set to last for 30 years and the government has made a mountain of them. So look for the deadly ground loop of dumb government ideas to continue for at least that long. You'll get these dollars in change from Post Office stamp machines and you'll try to get rid of them as quickly as possible at the 7/11. The 7/11 will try to fob them off on other customers and be refused. In the end, I suppose almost all of them will be shipped back to the Federal Reserve. Once there, they'll be shipped out to .... what else? ... Post Office stamp machines.

It's a nice gesture to put Sacagawea on the dollar coin. There was a lot of crowing about it when it happened. Before that, the dollar coin had Susan B. Anthony on it. It also went down to sleep with the Post Office. Perhaps they'd have better luck next time if they put Ben Franklin's choice for the national bird on it -- the Turkey. A much more popular choice with a lot of room for jokes. Besides, collectors would gobble them up.

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Posted by Vanderleun at January 28, 2006 12:47 PM | TrackBack
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AMERICAN DIGEST HOME
"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

The Vietnamese don't like coins either. All their money used to be in bills, and I much prefer it that way, but recently the government tried putting out some coins, and people avoided them like the plague. I got stuck with a few.....a soup lady accepted some, (probably because we had already finished eating) but promptly put them away from her other money. At the beach we tried to pay a small part for some live crabs in coin, and there was absolutely no way the lady would accept them. She seemed to be horrified. Also, at the bank, one of the tellers pleaded with my wife to accept some. (Sounds like the post office in Laguna. By the way I used to drive a cab there.) An idea: get rid of pennies. This was done one year at the American Embassy store in the Manila, and worked great. Everything was rounded off to the nearest five cents.

Posted by: Brock Townsend at January 28, 2006 2:00 PM

The answer will be more state government toll roads. I go through Sacs by the sack-full in Texas. Bet Floridians do also.

Posted by: Jeff Cook at January 28, 2006 2:05 PM

The Sacagawea dollars (and her predecessors Ike and Susan B.) are so dopey they're cool. Use them for

Car wash! Use 'em at the Self-Serve Car Wash! No more futzing around with 7 or 8 quarters.

Stocking stuffers! There is no small boy in America who would be disappointed upon finding a small sack of Sacs in the toe of his Christmas stocking. It's pirate treasure!

Tips! Drop one on the tray every time the cocktail waitress brings a round. Once she sees it isn't a quarter, she'll know you're a wiseguy, but in a good way. Chicks dig a good tipper with a sense of humor.

Self defense! Keep a roll in your pocket or purse; whup the deserving upside the head with $20 in legal tender. Contribute the weapon to the Police Athletic League after the ambulance leaves.

As for the Post Office, they were going to find a way to pi$$ you off whether anybody had dollar coins or not. That's what government monopolies DO.

Posted by: Mike Anderson at January 28, 2006 2:38 PM

A very funny post.

Fortunately for me, the vending machines where I work do take the dreaded dollar coins, so they only last as long as it takes me to commute.

Posted by: David Garcia at January 28, 2006 4:01 PM

I have to say that I don't get this dislike of dollar coins (although the Sacagawea coin is too big in my opinion, given that it isn't worth that much). I've lived in Japan for a long time and we don't have any paper money worth less than 1,000 yen (roughly ten bucks), and the only large coin is worth 500 yen. Every time I go to America, I get stuck with all these dollar bills and the wallet gets so thick it'll barely fit in my pocket. Dollar bills were a great thing when you could actually buy something with them. Quarters in vending machines? Man, you have to have quarters by the roll - quarters are almost worthless.

Posted by: Kurt at January 28, 2006 4:06 PM

...I refer to them as "Post Office Scrip".

Posted by: leelu at January 28, 2006 4:30 PM

Canada went to dollar coins ( and two dollar coins ) a number of years ago, but they did something that seems to have eluded the US. Every time you turned in a dollar bill, it was not put back into the till. It took about a month for all dollar bills to disappear from general circulation. I was not initially a fan of the dollar coin, but I have to say that it's really a better solution. Now if only we could get rid of the penny.

Posted by: rws at January 28, 2006 6:36 PM

The REAL reason these coins have never been accepted is so simple it'll blow your mind.

There's no compartment for them in cash register drawers and the cost of retro fitting that industry would be enormous.

Posted by: Steel Turman at January 28, 2006 8:13 PM

I currently live in Australia, and the Aussies, like the Canadians, have gone to $1 and $2 coins to replace their bills. They've also taken Mr. Townsend's suggestion and round off all retail purchases to the nearest 5 cents. Both the coins and the rounding seem to work well down here, and I happen to like both, finding them somewhat more convenient than Stateside practice, but your mileage may vary. What the Aussies (and Canadians and Singaporeans, and the Brits, who use one pound sterling coins) have figured out, and which seems to have escaped our US Mint folks, is that acceptance seems to require that the higher-denomination coins feel significantly different than the small change. When you reach into your pocket, you know instantly what's an Aussie $2 coin. That's not the case with the Sac, although it's an improvement on the Susie, which was way too close in size and appearance to a quarter.

Posted by: waltj at January 28, 2006 9:27 PM

The real problem is, the government doesn't go far enough. If you want the dollar coins to replace the dollar bills, then you have to stop production of the bills entirely. And give people a deadline. They have one year to turn their dollar bills in. When the year is done old dollar bills cease to be legal tender.

Hell, I'd go further. New coins all along the line. Starting with the penny as the smallest, and gradating up to the dollar coin as the largest.

Yes, it means changing things such as coin operated machinery and cash register drawers. But, instead of looking at it as a hassle, look at it as an opportunity. At the very least things will have to be retrofitted. Here's an opportunity for people to replace old equipment, and it would provide jobs as the manufacturers of coin operated machinery etc. work their butts off to get the new devices out the door.

Hey, if you're going to currency reform, show some balls and go all the way.

Posted by: Alan Kellogg at January 28, 2006 11:03 PM

Hey yes, we have those things here in Canada and really, it's no biggie. Also the "cash register drawer" excuse isn't really true, normally cash register drawers have a few extra spots for change (at least when I worked at 7-11 they did.) And what can a couple thousand plastic trays cost anyways? They just insert in. Not exactly an astronomically huge retrofit.

I agree with the Aussie though, it has to feel different. Here we have a loon on the 1 dollar coin and it gets called a "loonie". I actually don't know what's on the 2 dollar coin but it's called a "toonie". Really. The toonie one has a brassy metal on the inside and a nickely metal on the outside. You can split the two pieces apart but only if you are extremely determined. I may have seen this happen once. They are both nifty and feel like they are suitably more valuable than chump change. And everybody hated them and so forth just like you seem to before they came in. In my experience though they bulk up my wallet a helluvalot more than bills would.

Posted by: Calvin at January 29, 2006 1:17 AM

No one has touched on the real reason why these coins are not accepted, and that is because they are made of base metals, rather than precious metals like silver and gold. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, silver dollars were commonplace, and to my knowledge, nobody had a problem with them. Why? They were made of silver, and had intrinsic value. In fact, there was a time when people preferred coins and distrusted paper currency.

Right now I'm looking at a silver dollar from 1922. It is enormous, much bigger than any of today's coins. They used to be nicknamed "cartwheels". At that time their sizes made sense. A silver dollar was $1 worth of silver, a 50 cent piece was half the weight of a dollar, a 25 cent coin was a quarter of a dollar, and so on. Today's coins have kept the same sizes, but they have no meaning since they're all made of worthless base metals. And the dollar and half dollar have vanished from circulation. The Kennedy half dollar has been minted continuously since 1964, but when was the last time you got one in change? And wasn't your reaction the same as getting a Sacajawea dollar?

I also have a $5 gold coin from 1897. It cost me about $75 a few years ago. With the recent rise in gold prices, it's worth well over $100 today. It's only a hair bigger than a nickel. But I seriously doubt that anybody in 1897 confused the two, because there is a huge difference in the value of gold and nickel. Coins meant something back then. Today they're all alloys of nickel, in various combinations.

The real issue, in my opinion, is the debasement of the currency. But that's a topic for another day.

Posted by: rickl at January 29, 2006 6:18 AM

For what it's worth, I saw a documentary about the U.S. Mint on the History Channel a while ago. It discussed the Sacajawea dollar, and showed the young college student of Native American descent who was used as the sculptor's model for the coin. God, she was cute! A huge improvement over Susan B.

For that matter, the the portrait on the Peace Dollar minted during the 1920's was more attractive than the one on the Morgan Dollar of the late 19th century. That one looked like somebody's grandmother.

Posted by: rickl at January 29, 2006 6:36 AM

A huge improvement over Susan B.

How about a Ginsburg coin?

Posted by: SurfViewWA at January 29, 2006 3:42 PM

I'll tell you who else gets it in the 'nads -- look at the change that military people get from the PX. When I was in Germany (granted, about 15 years ago) change always consisted of Susie B's and the dreaded two dollar bill. Never a George Washington.

Posted by: CavDude at January 29, 2006 5:50 PM

I would have no problem with the Sacajawea if it was significantly larger than a quarter, instantly recognizable by touch as well as visually. I had the same problem with the Susan B. I agree with the above posters about getting rid of the penny.

Posted by: Morenuancedthanyou at January 30, 2006 1:36 PM

They could make dollar coins widely accepted in short order if they made sure parking meters accepted them— and gave a price premium.

I've heard that cabbies and limosine drivers like dollar coins for paying tolls, not such a bad idea when driving in a windy area.

When I was a clerk, I always tried to put the weird money (including $2 bills) back into circulation as quickly as possible, but I always asked. "Would you like your change in dollar coins?" "There's a new nickel out, want one?" "Hey, look, a $2 bill!"

Presented as a choice, most people actually took the unusual stuff. Especially if there was a small boy along.

The most creative use for dollar coins I saw was when I took a friend to the Renaissance Faire last summer. She took out $50 in dollar coins and filled a pouch— and it was the first time anyone at the faire had seen anyone do that. They universally loved the idea.

Posted by: B. Durbin at January 30, 2006 7:34 PM

The Ike dollars and their predecessors at least had the virtue of being a different size than the Sacajawea's and the even more dreadful Susan B. Anthony's. The dollar coins minted before 1965 also had the virtue of being made of actual silver.

For my money (sorry for the pun), the dollar coins designed by Augustus Saint Gaudins were among the most beautiful coins ever minted. I wish that we could go back to the designs of earlier eras for our coins.

Posted by: Charlie from Boston at February 2, 2006 3:24 PM

In Canada some clever entrepreneur (probably an American) invented an insert that fits into the upper portion of the cash drawer of a register designed to fit the loonies and toonies. All parking meters, laundry machines, pop machines etc...take them. This has led to acceptance (albeit state enforced)of the coins.

I still prefer the greenbacks though. I think all this larger denomination coinage debases the real value of a dollar. Kind of like mint actuated inflation.

Marty

Posted by: Marty Power at February 23, 2006 5:29 AM
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