How Long Until People Don't Use Coins Anymore?

The United States Mint manufactured Trade silver dollars minted from 1873 to 1885, but these were only intended to be used in Asia. AFAIK it is the only money that has ever been demonetized by the US government, and they were technically not to be used domestically. The $5,000 and $10,000 banknotes issued before WWII are still valid currency even though there is fewer than 700 pieces left in both denominations. Their collector value is considerably higher than face value. There are several thousand $500 and $1000 banknotes left, and every year a small number get turned into the central bank to be destroyed.

Canada also does not demonetize by policy, so the 1-cent coin is still worth something in Canada. But a vender is not required to accept money, even if it is legal tender. So if you want to buy something for CAD$0.20 and you want to pay with a handful of pennies, the seller is not obligated to accept that payment.


It is very common in Latin America and Africa to remove zeros from the currency. The old style Mexican peso had three zeros removed in 1993. So new banknotes were printed up with three zeros missing (a 20,000 old peso banknote was replaced with a 20 new peso banknote). The new banknotes had the same portrait and color scheme as the old banknotes. Clearly, in this case, it would be folly not to demonetize the old banknotes which would be nearly worthless. You could try to commit fraud particularly on unsuspecting foreigners.

AFAIK , Iceland is the only country in Europe to remove zeros in post WWII period. They took off two zeros in 1981. Italy had a 500,000 lira banknote from 1996-2002, and several countries had 10,000 unit banknote (Spain, Portugal, Greece, etc.).

In Europe there is typically a rather lengthy period when old notes can be mailed to the central bank for a fee. The idea is that you might find cash in a home safe of an elderly person who passes, and you want it to be worth something. But banknotes are a liability on the central bank's balance sheet and they are anxious to have the books cleared. In Switzerland banknotes are good for about 20 years and after that you have another 20 years to turn them into the central bank. After that time, the central bank donates to charity an amount equal to the unredeemed notes, and they will not redeem anything in the future. The Swiss situation is different since they have had a 1000 franc note since 1907. At one point the 1000 CHF banknote was worth more than US$1300, and is now closer to US$1000.

German Marks are no longer legal tender, but you can still change them for Euros (for a price) at banks. Sentimentalists still retain over $6 billion in German Marks and they are legally allowed to have flea markets where everything is denominated in DM.

The Euro Area has announced they stopped issuing 500 Euro banknotes and they will not be included in the new "Europa" series. The new Europa 100 and 200 banknotes will begin issuing at end of May 2019. But the old notes are not demonetized, although most people will exchange them for new 100 Euro and 200 Euro notes. These notes are quite valuable to keep as souvenirs, and there are over 500 million of them in circulation so their collector value is quite low.

We could also note that the 19th century was quite an active time for the U.S. in experimenting with, and abandoning small denominations that outlived their usefulness. Between 1857 and 1890 we saw the end of the 1/2 cent, the 2 cent, the 3 cent and the 20 cent coins.

The Bank of England typically has much shorter time to redeem archaic banknotes. The UK demonetized all banknotes worth more than £5 in 1945 because they were afraid that Nazi counterfeits were unrecovered. It took 19 years to reintroduce the £10 banknote, 25 years to reintroduce the £20 banknote (when it was worth about $50) and 36 years to reintroduce the £50 banknote (when it was briefly worth more than $100).

The £50 banknote (series D) which was reintroduced on Mar 20, 1981. A series E note was issued on Apr 20, 1994 and the series D notes were no longer valid legal tender as of Sep 20, 1996. A series F banknote was introduced on Nov 2, 2011 and the series E notes were no longer valid as of Apr 30, 2014. As the new polymer notes are introduced, they typically provide only 1 year to bank the old paper notes before they are demonetized, but all English banknotes are redeemable at the Bank of England's offices presumably forever.

The original, round £1 coin was introduced on 21 April 1983 and replaced the Bank of England £1 note, which ceased to be issued at the end of 1984 and was removed from circulation on 11 March 1988. As over 3% of the coins were counterfeit, a new, dodecagonal (12-sided) design of coin was introduced on 28 March 2017 and both new and old versions of the one pound coin circulated together until the older design was withdrawn from circulation on 15 October 2017. After that date, the older coin could only be redeemed at banks which presumably are more adept at spotting counterfeits.

I would argue that it is not the elimination of lower denominations but inflation that is the reason why the lowest increment that a reasonable person would want to transact in becomes a greater number of monetary units. The elimination of low denominations is just a symptom of inflation. If we take the case of the Zimbabwe dollar, lower denominations used to be regularly used in commerce until inflation got so out of control that it no longer became worth the time and effort to deal with even the largest denominations. I think the Zimbabwe dollar provides a recent example where the effects of inflation on lower denominations is much more noticeable. Inflation in the U.S. is low enough that discussions to change any of the denominations only crop up every few decades.



I guess we can thank Spain for that.

I agree. A symptom, not the cause.


Yes. Yes we can.

I have used the 200 Euro note. I liked it a lot.

It's obviously not entirely one or the other, the point which maybe I did not make well was that they both contribute to that. The whole Zimbabwe thing throw it out the window, the USA isn't even close to that kind of small country. It's not derogatory or racist or anything, but small countries economies behave very differently than a super power that is essentially the biggest buyer of most things from everyone.

Lets put it this way, the world economy crashes without USA buying power. Small nations are not an example nor is a small town of 500 in the USA an example of the county