Comment by Analemma_
7 hours ago
Honestly nickels and dimes, and maybe even quarters, should go too. It's ridiculous that we don't have $1 and $2 coins in widespread circulation in the US (we have a $1 coin but nobody uses it).
7 hours ago
Honestly nickels and dimes, and maybe even quarters, should go too. It's ridiculous that we don't have $1 and $2 coins in widespread circulation in the US (we have a $1 coin but nobody uses it).
Quarters might be premature, but the half-cent was discontinued when it was worth a (modern equivalent) of $0.12-17. Even 20-30 years ago, when I was just starting to interact with money enough to have an opinion, I thought it was a hassle to deal with anything smaller than a quarter. The same logic behind getting rid of pennies (they cost more to make than the face value) also supports doing at least nickels.
> The same logic behind getting rid of pennies (they cost more to make than the face value)
I've honestly never understood why this is a valid reason to object to the coin. Coins aren't used only once, so that they cost most to make than their face value doesn't seem very important, unless the differential is much, much larger than it actually is.
I get what you mean, but the Mint does "sell" currency in a sense, so it's not a terrible point to make. It also serves as a decent benchmark for the "should we even bother" aspect; should we lose money by literally making money?
We also have a $2 bill that nobody uses for whatever reason.
I never understood the objections to the $1 coin, especially after the redesign to make it more distinct from a quarter. $1 coins are great for buying stuff out of vending machines since you don't have to fight with a dodgy bill acceptor or a mangled bill.
My only real objection I guess, and the reason I don't carry change of any sort, is because it's constantly falling out of my pockets. I'm rather tall, so many seating positions put my knees higher than my waist, which I think contributes to that.
Further, since I don't have enough pockets to have a dedicated change pocket, it's always getting caught up in my keys and/or pocket knife.
Nobody really gave us training on this stuff, do other countries use a coin purse or some such?
Lastly, they're just comparatively heavy.
I just carry cash around in either a clip or a "front pocket wallet" I think they're called, and it seems more convenient all around.
> Nobody really gave us training on this stuff, do other countries use a coin purse or some such?
Americans also use coin purses or rubber coin pouches, but I mostly only see older generations using them.
This was a whole thing in the 70s. There was a 3 step plan:
1) Bring back the $2 bill (it had not been printed for a decade+)
2) Redesign the $1 coin (Eisenhowers being too big and heavy)
3) Stop printing $1 bills
Unfortunately they never got to step 3, which made 1 and 2 pointless, and here we are.
Yeah. My proposal would be to have 10 cent, 50 cent, and $1 coins (rounding everything to the nearest 10 cents), with $2 the smallest bill. And probably you could drop the $5 bill at that point.
There's a lot of physical infrastructure that works with quarters, and it's probably not worth giving that up for slightly improved coinage. Just drop all the coins smaller than a quarter.
3 replies →
> We also have a $2 bill that nobody uses for whatever reason.
It’s because retailers wont accept them - they think they’re counterfeit because no one uses them. A catch-22 situation, really.
I've never had a retailer refuse to accept a $2 bill, although a couple of times the clerk summoned the manager about it.
But I've never found a retailer willing to give a $2 bill as change.
The resistance to the $2 bill is a very weird cultural thing.
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Sorry Europe and Canada, $1 and $2 coins are just absolutely terrible. I never want to have to think about where my change is. Bills are much lighter than coins and stack with the rest of the bills.
I want to get rid of bills and move to only coins. We can carry coin pouches and act like a medieval/fantasy novel character.
IMO best would be some kind of money where you could physically break a given piece of cash into two pieces of half the value.
When I was in Japan everything was all-cash and the smallest bill was the equivalent of a $10, with equivalents to $1 and $5 coins being in common circulation. Most wallets they sold/people had had a coin pocket to account for this.
Nickels and dimes certainly have predecent. When the US killed the half-penny in 1857, it had a purchasing power of somewhere around 19 cents from 2024.
Used to use dollar coins at toll booths all the time. That was before ez pass
Honestly I'd rather just not have coins at that point, rather than try to push $1 and $2 coins. Then I can just carry my wallet for bills and not have to worry about keeping track of coins separately.
Gotta do something to make the $2 bill popular though, no idea how.
At least nickels should go so we can always round by one digit.
I'd mourn the loss of the quarter. I use those quite often.
> (we have a $1 coin but nobody uses it)
Because they keep designing it in the stupidest way, making it easy to confuse with a quarter. I don't know why they do that.
That said, I do prefer paper $1 bills over coins. Paper is lighter and easier to carry. But I'd only slightly grumble if we replaced it with a reasonable coin.
> That said, I do prefer paper $1 bills over coins. Paper is lighter and easier to carry.
Sure, but how many $1 bills do you typically carry around? If it's more than four, then you can trade them in for a $5 bill just about anywhere.
It's a completely different color than a quarter.
That doesn't help if you're in dim lighting or have vision problems.
7 replies →
If your fingertips can sense the color of things in your pocket, I'd love to learn more.
Bring back the Eisenhower dollar!