Presidential Dollars

Two "funnier" things:

The biggest reason most machines won't take them is the slot is too small. A few years ago, a more militant faction of mini dollar users carried chisels and hammers to repair machines with too-small slots.

The second biggest reason is once the coin will physically go in the slot, the mech won't recognize them. You might think the operators can't afford thousands of dollars for new mechs, right? Nope. On virtually all machines sold since 1980, then only change needed is to throw an on/off switch on the mech.

I have gotten one or two from a cashier after making a purchase. If many of them are in vaults do you think they will ever see the light of day? If the mint could would they recycle them and make more coins?

The Prez dollars...so dissapointing.

We may start seeing them appear if banking fees start being regulated. Debit card usage may go down if banks decide to charge customers for their use (i.e. no free checking accounts) and people may shift over to more cash transactions. Just a guess.

-- Boris

I think he meant melting them and recycling them into more dollar coins so that the stockpile doesn't continue to grow.

Still wouldn't be worthwhile. You would start with X number of dollars that cost 12 cents apiece to make. Then have the expense of waffling them, shipping to the strip makers, the expense of melting, either refining or alloy adjustment, the expense of rolling new strip, shipping back to the mint, and finally blanking and creating new dollar coins out of them. And at the end you have X number of dollars that now have cost 28 cents to make. A few more cycles and you're going to wind up with X number of dollars that cost $1.10 each to make.

If they were to pull the SBA I would have to find another coin to harass cashiers with.

Same here. When I go to the bank, I buy as many Presidential dollars as I can carry (A lot being loose ones) and of every president I have gotten, The andrew jackson dollars are the most tarnished and worn.