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 Replies: 51 / Views: 6,085 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
997 Posts |
I have spent a lot of time in Canada and gained an appreciation for some of the things they do there with currency. While I despise the metals reclamation project that has decimated the nickel, copper and silver from circulation (before the collectors could do the same...) they seem to get some things right.
The use of the $1 and $2 coins in Canada is taken for granted, basically because they have no choice. They pulled the $1 and $2 bills to force the issue and survived. The US will do the same.
I would suggest the use of a $2 coin in the US rather than the Quarter Eagle denomination of $2.50 to help keep things simple. While I kind of like the idea of replacing the Dollar with the Eagle as the basic denomination of our currency and coinage system (thus bringing us back to about 1950 in currency values: $10 2015 being about the value of $1 1950) the Quarter Eagle would present too many problems in figuring change. A $2 coin would be easier to deal with.
If I were King of the USA I would probably eliminate the cent, nickel and quarter coins as well as the $1 and $2 bills. I would add a $2 coin, make the $1 coin smaller but thicker and a few years from now replace the $5 bill with a $5 coin. I think the Half would rebound naturally and we can deal without a denomination such as a 20 cent coin.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4963 Posts |
Quote:
I have spent a lot of time in Canada and gained an appreciation for some of the things they do there with currency. While I despise the metals reclamation project that has decimated the nickel, copper and silver from circulation (before the collectors could do the same...) they seem to get some things right.  Canada is like the U.S's smarter, more logical and better behaved little brother. Of course I have nothing against the U.S, but I think we could learn a lesson from Canada's monetary system. With regards to the suggestion of a $2 coin rather than $2.50, I suppose it would be more useful for transaction, but the Quarter Eagle is more compatible with the Half Eagle. |
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Moderator
 United States
188770 Posts |
Quote:
I would suggest the use of a $2 coin in the US rather than the Quarter Eagle denomination of $2.50 to help keep things simple. I agree. Quote:
With regards to the suggestion of a $2 coin rather than $2.50, I suppose it would be more useful for transaction, but the Quarter Eagle is more compatible with the Half Eagle. The problem today is the quarter and what to do with it when the nickel goes away. Fifty years from now we do not want to have the same question with the quarter eagle when the dollar coin becomes the smallest denomination.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4963 Posts |
In that case, the $2 would make more sense for sure, and it probably would anyway even with lower denominations. Personally, I like the Half Dollar, but anything below can go.
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Pillar of the Community
 708 Posts |
I too, would be against $2.50 Quarter Eagle denomination coin. A $2 coin would be more simple to add and count by and handle. Just as I told my neighbor, when we were talking about having larger denominations of paper money than $100, and he said "Yeah, I think we could use a $250 bill" and I told him, "No, we need to keep it simple. Go with a $200 bill (and a $500 bill)" and he agreed.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4963 Posts |
Along the same lines, I think the 20 cent piece is better than the Quarter Dollar, but we don't really need either.
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Moderator
United States
188770 Posts |
The Twenty Cent coin would be way better than the quarter dollar.  We had a chance to make that change and blew it.  If only we did, getting rid of the cent and nickel would be that much easier. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4963 Posts |
By the late 1870s, quarter dollars had already circulated for about 8 decades, and I guess people were just too accustomed to them. If we had switched then, we would have gotten accustomed to the 20 cent piece quickly. Sort of like how we could have switched to the [superior] metric system in the 1970s, but didn't take the opportunity like the rest of the world did.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
997 Posts |
Numisma hits it on the head. We are stuck with the quarter because by the time it was discovered to be the wrong coin it was too late. The quarter came into being because US currency was still being based on 8's even though it was a decimal system. The Spanish Dollar upon which our entire currency system was built was often divided in half, then in half again, then in half a third time. We are lucky they didn't come up with a 12.5 cent coin (which would have likely been called a "Bit") instead of the Dime.
While I am ranting, let's also get rid of the Dime, Quarter and Half Dollar right now and replace them with "10 Cents", "25 Cents" and "50 Cents".
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Pillar of the Community
708 Posts |
I kinda wish they would have stuck with the Half Dime, instead of making the nickel, because, wasn't the Half Dime a little smaller than the dime? I thought that the reason they went to the nickel, was because it was harder to lose, than the Half Dime was. I think if that's the case, we should go back to the Half Dime to save money on using less metal(s) to make the five cent coin, and if we kept the one cent coin, make it a little smaller than the Half Dime, even it it still would cost more than a cent to produce, if you have the stubborn people who won't give the cent up, even if you could easily lose such a small coin, because, who cares if you lose a nearly worthless one cent coin. Then we could resize the half dollar to the size of the current five cent coin, the nickel, making it worth more to carry one half dollar than two quarter dollars, due to the half dollar's advantage of being lighter weight than two quarters. |
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Moderator
United States
188770 Posts |
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Sort of like how we could have switched to the [superior] metric system in the 1970s, but didn't take the opportunity like the rest of the world did. Truth! I remember learning metric in the 70's and was excited, but then it just seemed to end overnight. Quote:
While I am ranting, let's also get rid of the Dime, Quarter and Half Dollar right now and replace them with "10 Cents", "25 Cents" and "50 Cents". I am all for that!  Maybe use numbers instead of words, so the "$1" on the dollar coin haters will have a full conniption.  |
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Pillar of the Community
708 Posts |
n9jig and jbuck, how about 1 cent and 5 cents. If we keep those coins. Put their denominations in numbers for a change, not words.  Let's also put 100 cents for the dollar coin.  After all, I noticed Canada's $100 bill says "One Hundred Cent Dollars" on it, I believe. Edited by Fox
06/04/2015 11:52 am
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
Quote:I kinda wish they would have stuck with the Half Dime, instead of making the nickel, because, wasn't the Half Dime a little smaller than the dime? Have you ever tried handling Half Dimes? If you did you would understand why people embraced the nickel five cent piece. Quote: I thought that the reason they went to the nickel, was because it was harder to lose, than the Half Dime was. No it was because the silver that disappeared during the Civl War didn't come back right away, and any silver issued disappeared as well. The base metal coppernickel five cent piece wasn't hoarded because it wasn't precious metal. And they were able to make it a larger more convenient size while still not having the metal cost more than the face value. Oh and by the way, when they introduced the nickel five cent they also officially switched all the weight specs for the coins from the English standard of grains to the metric standard of grams. The government officially switched to the metric system almost 150 years ago. But they didn't make the changeover official policy for the public. So 150 years later we still haven't switched over to the rest of the world. (Most of the world switched in the 19th century.) |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
997 Posts |
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After all, I noticed Canada's $100 bill says "One Hundred Cent Dollars" on it, I believe. I think that "Cent" is French for 100. After recently adding to my collection of Canadian silver 5 cent pieces, which were almost identical to US Half Dimes, I can honestly say the larger 5 cent coin is preferable. I dropped one or two of these and they were so small I had a hard time finding them. I can only imagine the trouble users of half-dimes had, it had to be even worse for the old 3 cent silver coins! |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1414 Posts |
I lived in Japan for 7 years and we had a 500 yen (almost $5 at the time) and it was nice but I hated the change, haha. Jeff
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Replies: 51 / Views: 6,085 |
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Posted 06/01/2015 9:37 pm
