When You've Never Seen Them Before

True that.

I am very surprised small dollar coins aren't more widely known in the States, as quite a lot of slot machines take them and give them in change. Many of the $1 coins in my collection came from stamp machines at Post Offices and when buying tickets for metro systems. I've never had any refused in the States (unlike half dollars) but once in a burger restaurant the cashier had to summon a senior member of staff before agreeing to accept them!

Oh my. We are the dumb.

Genuinely surprised that folks aren't familiar with the dollar coins, what with the advertising blitz that accompanied the introduction of the Sacagawea dollars. But then, that was in 2000.

In my locale, all of the car washes dispense them as change. There is a vending machine at work that also issues them as change. About 20% of them are SBA dollars, and I spend those first--what an awful-looking coin.

Perhaps interestingly, my grandparents operated a rural grocery store until 1981. They put every SBA, Ike dollar, Wheat cent, silver coin, and $2 bill they received into the safe. When I inherited the accumulation, there was less than $20 in SBAs and all were AU55 or MS. These coins were simply unloved back then.

Not surprised at all that non-coin collectors don't know about dollar coins.

Why should they? Nobody ever uses them.

I have heard it said a time or two that the $1 on the back makes them look as if they are.

Not an opinion I hold, just one that I have heard here.

In 2010 I paid $3.00 to a car driver in a ride-sharing arrangement.
I gave the driver three Millard Fillmore dollar coins and he asked if they were "play money".

Millard Fillmore dollar 2010

I knew then that the dollar coins would not succeed.