$1 Coins: Unwanted, Unloved And Out Of Currency

Without saying too much, the establishments in my area have been giving the two dollar notes as change for over ten years now. You can bring one dollar notes in, but you will never get them in change.

What further proof do you need that inflation affects everyone?

While I have suggested several "solutions" to the problems facing current coinage and currency it won't be long I am afraid that none of the various solutions will really matter. Coins and bills will most likely go the way of the vinyl record album and cassette tape and be replaced with virtual money. Debit and value cards will be like CD's, an interim if not ubiquitous solution until some sort of biometrics take over for the majority of transactions.

What will really seal the deal on cash transactions will be like so many other innovations. The criminal and elements will drive a cashless solution much like created the home VCR/DVD market and then mainstream users will buy in. Later on that will evolve to something akin to iTunes' takeover of music purchases.

I see people these days, especially youths, use debit or credit cards for purchases that would shock the older crowd. Why use cash to buy a can of pop or a candy bar, just whip out the plastic. No signature needed under $25. I already have people want to use PayPal for small payments all the time.

It's coming folks. Diehard cash users will fight it all the way, these are like the guys who still prefer 8-tracks in their T-Top Camaro.

America would simply half to do what Canada did and stop making $1 bills. The problem is that is a very big POLITICAL move and neither the elephants or the donkeys want to walk though that political minefield. Of course the stories about the Susan B. Anthony (A.K.A. Susan B. Agony and Carter Quarter) and the Ike dollar (basically a promise LBJ made to Vegas although Nixon actually carried it over the goal line) are well known. What many people outside the coin community do not realize is that the Morgan dollar generally was widely used only in the Western states and it was the primarily Republican members of Congress from these states (California and Nevada) that were the key votes in getting the Morgan dollar off the drawing board. When they teamed up with Democrats led by Rep. Richard "Silver Dick" Bland of Missouri, they forced through the Bland Allison Act and overrode President Hayes veto. Now keep in mind that all time going back to President Washington only about 7% of all vetoes have been overturned. The Bland Allison Act forced the federal government to buy all that silver out of the western mines and coin it as silver dollars. It basically was a subsidy as the coins were not need by the entire company. The Morgan dollar production was finally halted in 1904 because the mints had all these bags sitting in their vaults were many of them lay until the government sales of the 1960s.