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 Replies: 18 / Views: 4,024 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2408 Posts |
David, I'm 180 degree in the opposite direction; I use less than 1% cash. Your vision is certainly opposed to mine but I respect that. One thing we can't argue is the world-wide trend towards electronic forms of payment. Whether good or bad, the need for bills/coins will likely go down. And to answer the OP, I can only presume that if less people use coins, then the interest will diminish over time. Old-timers like me and baby boomers won't be around forever. If my own kids interest in coins are a measure of what is to come, we collectors are in for a rough ride. One interesting article here: http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/cas...ts-07062010/illustrates that. |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
516 Posts |
One day we will be using plastic for all our payments. I do not mean plastic bills but credit cards and debit cards.
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Valued Member
Canada
451 Posts |
I already use so little cash that I have to ask around just to keep my circulation collection up to date; in fact, I think I already fell behind. I am glad the Mint makes their special circulation coins available at cost with free shipping. As long as people like collecting gold and silver, coin collecting will always exist. Circulation coins may lose some interest, but bullion based collections will still thrive.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2408 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2624 Posts |
When I was in retail we discouraged the use of cards for small transactions (switch at that time was making a fee on each transaction and visa a small percentage)
I always found it amazing that people would try and buy something like a mcdonalds with a credit card, I would be embarrassed to do that and would find it an inconvenience having to enter pin and wait for it to go through.
Larger purchases definately there are advantages (credit cards insure you on your purchase/if you are a woman it might be unsettling to walk round with large amounts of notes) but for smaller purchases I think cash is king.
Culturally though maybe it is different over there. Many countries have accepted the introduction of ID cards but here in Britain there has been flat refusal by the public to accept such a thing.
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Valued Member
 Canada
66 Posts |
@canadian_coins: I see your point. I hope that maybe the recent interest in silver and gold will get some of the younger generations to look at coins as one of the ways to invest in silver/gold. I'm actually from one of the younger generations and my interest in coins didn't come from my parents (one of them is a coin collector). My interest came from when I was looking at different ways to have a collection of silver and gold.
@Lithanial: I agree and I hope we're right!
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I'm hoping that the value and interest in coins will remain around the same. We have $1 and $2 bills that were removed awhile ago and there is still interest in collecting them. There are also ancient Greek and Roman coins, which are no longer in use...but there's still interest in them. Thus, I'm hoping that all of the work/money we've put into our coin collections will still be worth it if we do enter into a "cashless" society soon.
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New Member
United States
13 Posts |
Cash was the only thing that worked around the mid-atlantic coast of the USA last week. Power was knocked out for many, and comms were knocked out for most. ATMs didn't work either. How would this be handled if we go to an all e-money scenario?
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
2366 Posts |
@jcz1 Very good point. I charge everything I can to my credit card to get the rewards but I always have a couple of twenties tucked in my wallet and a couple of hundred in cash kicking around the house just in case. There would have to be billions invested in infrastructure upgrades to provide the virtually 100% reliability required to make a full transition.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2408 Posts |
Quote:
Cash was the only thing that worked around the mid-atlantic coast of the USA last week. Power was knocked out for many, and comms were knocked out for most. ATMs didn't work either. How would this be handled if we go to an all e-money scenario? The same argument was used when homes started going all electric. Apocalyptic scenarios would affect everything, not just the flow of money... and even if you were among the very few to have cash on hand, it would be worthless. Better to keep extra food, wood and guns. And as described, ATMs didn't work - so people couldn't get to their cash anyway. But I bet people could still pay with their cell phones where merchants have the infrastructure. |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
590 Posts |
lets think worse case scenario, the aftermath of a global viral pandemic, nuclear war or a Zombie Apocalypse. In each case we will probably revert to a more primal civilization where the ability to barter and trade will be most important. Also I feel bullets will be more valuable than gold coins.
In the mean time, while all is good, electronic money will become the norm. Any disturbance to the system will most likely be short and have little effect on people reliance on this form of money. As long as people continue to put their faith in gold and silver, electronic money will simply be a convince. The day we put our faith totally in the electronic transfer of money is the day we a totally screwed as a society.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2408 Posts |
Quote:
The day we put our faith totally in the electronic transfer of money is the day we a totally screwed as a society. Let's talk candidly for a minute. Let's not pay too much attention on this apocalyptic video from a kid barely out of school and who probably doesn't even have a steady job yet. Yes, RFID tags are becoming widely used and may be a concern to some extent i.e. if used to track people instead of merchandise. How many of you use a badge system at work? Clocking in/out for lunch break etc. Employers can track your every move within the building. This is nothing new. Back to cash... When was the last time you received your salary in cash? Taking all your assets, how much of it is in cash? I bet the vast majority of your "money" is in the form of 401K, RRSP, CD, Annuities, etc. Major purchases like a home or a business are be done electronically. Thank god. Not in cold hard cash. I really don't understand when people say that cash transactions are safest. Or maybe I have a different notion of risk. Certainly for me, traveling here or abroad with any significant amount of cash is out of the question. My wallet was stolen once in Florida and I recovered every e-pennies - but not my cash. I'd rather have my identity stolen and recover through my bank or insurance, rather than be mugged or killed at the ATM. I think society can also be screwed because of cash, by being a vehicle for illicit activities, underground commerce and what not. |
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Valued Member
Canada
457 Posts |
I believe for the most part all of our coin collections will continue to have value in the future, it wont matter if we have a cash or cashless system.
Our coins will be collected as art and as bullion.
I imagine in a few hundred years there will be a lot less collectors as a percentage but the population will be larger.
I think their collections will be very large and amazing, all the more reason to dump anything you have in the lower grades and only collect the better grades.
It surprises me how easy it is to obtain almost any Canadian coin I want in higher grades, I think in the near future it will get a lot harder.
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Valued Member
Canada
451 Posts |
The annoying thing about all of this is how much money has been spent on polymer notes and coins with higher security features, considering chips are just around the corner. I guess the theory is that it will still take many many years to fade cash out of the system even with the chip.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3692 Posts |
Having people being forced to use digital money won't stem the flow of illegal activities. Ban anything and you'll have a black market overnight.
For me, I prefer the interation and trust between individuals to make business. At an ATM if there's an error made there's no one at whom I can point the finger. And if power goes out then so does our ability to do business if we're forced to use digital money. It will be a hard lesson when we come to it, but business is the exchange of one thing for another, not a bunch of bytes and 1s and 0s that can be hyperinflated at the stroke of a key, and all while holding the world ransom.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2408 Posts |
^^ nobody is forcing us to use eMoney really.
It just happens naturally.
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Replies: 18 / Views: 4,024 |
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First Page
Posted 07/07/2012 8:28 pm
