Reactions When You Spend Oddball Coins?

Tried to spend some half dollars at a fast food drive thru. I handed them to the younger girl working the window and she flipped through them while looking bewildered. About 15 seconds later she hollers to the manager "Do we take 50c pieces?" and the manager on duty quickly replied back "Uh, yeah we do, why wouldn't we take them?". Anyway, I got my change and food and the girl still looked a bit confused when I pulled away..

I have spent hundreds in halves, $1 coins and $2 bills, plus hundreds more that I actually put back out at my old job to see how people would react.

Most people are at least aware of the "odd"denominations and can figure out what to do with them. Probably 95% either didn't react at all, or accepted them with a strange stare or casual comment.

Some of the funniest reactions:

(Customer who just got a 1974 half then asked for the rest from my till): "Hey honey! That idiot cashier is giving away free silver!"

(Customer who just received a Presidential dollar): "(expletive) liberals are taking over the country with their godless money!"

(Cashier who just received a handful of Presidential dollars): "Um sir, we don't take car wash tokens."

I often get away with deliberately spending 20 cent coins from new Zealand and old florins from Great Britain.
Although of very different reverse designs to the Australian 20 cent platypus coins, they are of exactly the same planchet size in diameter thicknesss and weight.

Same applies to the old Brtish sixpence and New Zealand 5 cents vs. the Austslian 5 cents; same applies with the 10 cents also.

In fact, old florins, shillings and sixpences (which have long since demonetized) of other British Commonwaealth counrtries can be spent in Australia also.

It reminds me of the time before the first U.S. coins were struck for circulation, way back in the late 1700's, when virtually any old foreign coin could be accepted as perfectly legal tender. That situation was similar in Australia before 1825, when the first substantial shipment of new coin from the British Royal Mint arrived in the Australian colonies, that firmly established British Sterling currency in Australia.

Australia used Australian Pounds, Shillings and Pence from 1910 through to 1966, then converted to Dollars and Cents.

I really can't stand all the designs, either. The never-ending quarter reverses, the oddball Lincolns, the bizarre juxtaposition of the ultra-modern Jefferson obverse with a quaint old 20th-century reverse. Design changes were fun when they were kept simple and consistent. Nowadays the quarter's reverse changes four times a year. And you can call me a curmudgeon, but despite the mint's assertion that these coins are officially termed "Statehood" and "America the Beautiful" quarters, as long as good ol' George is on the coin, it's still the Washington quarter to me.

Call me the counter-pointer.

My Washington quarter Collection runs form 1932 to 1998. It is complete.

My Statehood/DC/Territorial Quarter Collection runs from 1999 to 2009. It is also complete.

My ATB Quarter Collection stars in 2010 and is a work in progress. Who knows when it will end.

Just my opinion. Others will vary. So it is with our Hobby, to each their own.

jbuck I consider a new design to be a special run or new series, so Washington for you seems the same way since you have the drummer boy design in as part of the Washington series; even though it has a different design on the reverse. So the "state" and " ATB" quarters are just like bicentennial ones, all Washington, just a special design on the back. Like Westward Journey isn't a Buffalo nickel, its still a Jefferson nickel series, just a special collectors set within it.

Strange how this site even has them listed differently like the Mint does, yet the Lincoln Wheat and Lincoln Memorial is still Lincoln series, just an identifier denoting a different reverse design. so all 118+ quarter reverse design from 1999 onward all at least still have Washington on them.

So why go into all this in this thread on spending oddball coins? Well Now I will relate a Kennedy halves story here and not repeat it in the $100k thread:

took some straggler halves to spend the other day and notice the woman in line ahead of me pays with 2 Canadian quarters, the cashier gives them a quick look and put them in the drawer. Then my turn she tries to deny being able to take the halves because "They aren't money anymore"

I then ask her what about the Canadian quarter she just took that aren't even USA money, she says "Those were those new State Quarters".

Manager had to come tell her yes they do take halves but she has to count them (they were 13 unrolled halves anyway), and showed the cashier the quarters said "CANADA" on them, took them out of the drawer and told the cashier she owed the drawer 50 cents or she was going to come up short and it would come out of her paycheck.

I didnt even get to buy the Canadian quarters off them, I think the manager jsut wanted them herself.

So if nothing else at least all quarters from 1932 to now at least have Washington on them so people will know, not Queen Lizzy and an elk!

If the Mint hadn't called them Statehood or ATB, then what would you call them?

I call them the same as you jbuck