New $20 4 $20

My three arrived today. In case, like me, you were wondering what the adhesive sticker with the peel-off was for, it looks like some of the shipments of three come stuck in a cardboard sleeve (mine didn't):

http://cgi.ebay.com/3-x-20-Fine-Sil...t_1601wt_905

Took the coin to CIBC yesterday,they won't take it,they haven't been directed to accept them as legal tender,suggested I take it to a bullion buyer down the street or try and sell it online,they even showed me examples of the same coin online selling for $29.99 and $32.95.

That's too funny. The good news is that CIBC finally has Internet access. And we see they put it to good use; educating a coin collector on ways to sell the coins.

This is getting better every day. Income tax is next!

This is the 1976 Olympic coins nonsense all over again. Just with a lot less silver.

Manual handling of money means people, people means salaries, cost -- overhead. Banks have machines to count regular bills and coins. Not only this, they recycle cash deposits from one business to the next. So coins like the silver $20 will linger in their cash registers, until someone comes along and asks for them. So there is a reason why they don't really want this kind of cash... They simply don't need it.

Speaking of cash... this leads to the "prefer Canadian Tire money Vs Visa". Makes me laugh.

Any sizable business will prefer electronic payments, employees prefer them because there is less chance of errors, safe and secure, clerks love them because balancing is a breeze at the end of the day; press a button and you are done. Cash on the other hand is a pain in the butt -- trust me. Yes, plastic has fees. But those fees cover the cost of counting, stocking, re-counting, moving, depositing, managing, insuring and dealing with cash.

But if this is so great for businesses, then why aren't they all switching to plastic only?

Well, not everyone has plastic for one thing (yet). But I'll give you a hint: there may be certain "incentives" for business owners to get cash (or Canadian Tire money, watches and gold tooth). Shoplifters aren't always the ones who steal either. But as long as you balance out at the end of the year then everybody is happy..... and cash just so happens to be a perfect vehicle to smooth out the rough edges... A bit off topic so I'll leave it at that.

@Canadian_Coins
The fees on electronic transactions at our live auctions certainly outweigh the cost of counting the cash and making a deposit. There's absolutely not even a comparison. Fees for the machine, percentages to the card company, retaining an emergency balance for chargebacks (rare), the need for a dedicated line to handle the machine and the fact remains you still have to balance the transactions and there's no difference reading from a credit machine statement or a bank statement to the accountant. This has become especially true with the electronic chips on the cards as people stand there and scratch their heads trying to recall a pin for each different card that might have available credit on it.

We're now doing "cash discounted" transactions. If you pay with a CC we charge 3% more. In total contravention of any merchant agreement yes, but someone is going to cover the costs and it can't be us.

The statement you made is "sizable business" . Well most business transactions handled in North America aren't done by sizable business imo. According to US and Canada census, the majority of companies with a payroll in our countries employ only 1-9 people accounting for a combined North America number of 4.5Million firms with one to nine employees. While it could be argued the largest companies still account for the majority of transactions, I'd argue those large companies make relatively few if any end consumer transactions. That leaves you with large retail only and banks who are in the cash handling predicament you describe.

I'm left therefore with the impression that banks and Walmart-like corps do not want to handle a new form of currency and that's understandable. I just want to be fair about what business it is that we are discussing not wanting a new form of currency. From my POV, if you can accept a twonie, you can accept a tentwonie.

As a point in this exercise, Scotia Bank is one of the larger bullion dealers in North America. I'm curious how they'd look at this 20 dollar coin. You can pop in there and sell (or buy) any bullion, would they be more open to this as a form of legal tender?

C_C: I know a few businesses that build the 3% fee into prices. If you pay by cash you pay an extra 3% for a convenience you never realized. I find it hard to believe that most businesses don't bury the cost into the price or charge extra for using plastic credits.

Ugly: I wonder as well what Scotia Banks policy is? I also wonder what RBC and CIBC's official policy will be when decided on this coin? I don't have my coins yet to test locally. If anyone else has tried please post your results. I wonder how the RCM feels about banks even questioning the legal tender status of coins. Bank credits cards vs government money... should be an interesting fight if banks decide government money isn't real.

I agree with what you say Ugly and most comments regarding frustration when it comes to "fees".

I didn't want to put numbers on revenue but the business I was involved with had 4M/yr, with roughly 20 employees. Managing people Vs money in the cash registers was a significant cost just the time to balance at closing off the shift is clocked/paid. Consolidation and managing, distributing cash / coins etc. was done by a full time employee. Errors, theft happened way way more than charge backs! where I worked anyway....... Fake bills and - bad checks BTW were far more frequent. Actually we stopped accepting checks when electronic payment became predominant since our customers had other options besides credit (some believe credit is a sin and as a business owner you have to respect that). We also refused $100 bills.

Over a period of 15 years I saw a gradual reduction in cash inflow Vs other types of payment. And no matter what we say, I do not think this trend will stop. There are just overwhelming benefits. The downside is obvious, and debatable I admit. Some of it may depend on your personal views and what you consider important in a society, like paying taxes. Electronic payments are accountable for.

The days of our fathers standing in line at the Caisse Pop to cash their paychecks are over.