$2 Bills Halves And Dollar Coins

Well, its about time I reported a few things on the circulation of the $2 bill, the half, and the dollar coin.

Dollar Coins: I tried talking to one of the Dollar Coin Alliance people, the guy that told me to call him this month, and he was unavailable that day. I also talked with the wpman at the BEP about the "$1 Bill Vs. Dollar Coin" issue, to ask her what she thought about the idea, I mean, if it seemed like the dollar coin idea was becoming more popular, as the DCA claimed it was to me, and the BEP lady said that the DCA people seem to be "lying low" at the moment, and she did not really know much else about the issue. The BEP lady did tell me though, that she was happy to tell me any information that she knows, or could give out, on the new $100s release date or which denomination would be next (in the next redesign, of course) and I asked her is she seen any sketches of the next redesign's bills, and she told me she had not, and when I told her I was told that she was the one overseeing the next redesign of U.S. paper currency, she told me that, she was not, and that she was just a public affairs person. But she is very nice, and tells me to call if I ever need anything, and I told her that I try ro only call once a month, to try not to make a pest of myself, and she just always says "thats alright" and the secretary lady for the DCA also told me the same thing. I tried calling three times, and I told he that I could call back any time, and when I said I didn't want to make a pest of myself, she just replied (No, I like when you call" and she wasn't being sarcastic either. So, nothing to report on the dollar coin issue or when they are going to reintroduce the "COINS Act"

$2 Bills & Halves: Well, once again I must apologize that I didn't know which forum to post this to, because it involves both, paper money, and coins, but, mostly coins I figure, so I chose this one. Anyway, this was for the discussion I had with the vending industry on the accepting $2 bills and the accepting, and dispensing of halves. Mainly on the upgrading to accommodate the half's larger size. I told him about how I examined all of the vending machines at my local Walmart, and the slots looked like they could either be cut to be made bing enough to accept the half, or the whole coin slot could be swaped for a larger one. I also told him that, with the vending industry accepting and dispensing halves, there would be less trips to the machines to empty the quarter tubes, and that, people here have been telling me that ots probably as somple as the flip of a switch to accept halves as it is to accept small dollar coiins. And he said "I see your point. I haven't gotten around to talking to my boss about it, but call me back in a few days and I'll see what I can do" Then I decided to ask "Are you guys (NAMA) a part of the Dollar Coin Alliance?" and he said "I don't think so" and I said, "Yeah, I talked to a secretary while you were out on a business trip all last week, if you guys were still fighting for the dollar coin to replace the $1 bill, and she told me that NAMA gave up on that idea years ago, feeling it was a futile battle, and that they don't invest any money in the issue anymore" and the guy said "Yep, thats true. We had been fighting for so long that we've even started looking more into machines that accept cards more. So either my idea for $2 bills to cut down the use of $1 bills and retooling to accept halves to reduce the amount of trips to the vending machines to empyu quarter tubes and become the new wokhorse coin with the dollar coin has failed, may go over better than all together replacine the $1 bill completely with a dollar coin. But I did ask a person at my local Walmart if theu could program their machines to dispense halves and $2 bills as needed, and the manager I talked to, claimed that the machines could only dispense "normal money". And I asked at my local Meijer as well if they could get their machines modified to accept (because remember, I said Meijer's self checkouts don't even accept halves) and dispense halves as needed, and dis pense $2 bills as needed, and she claimed that "The machines could only give out pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. There is no room for the machine to give out any more coins." and I said, "Well, the coin slot is plenty big enough to accept halves, so rge origonal designers were obviously contemplating it, and what if the dollar coin replaces the $1 bill? What happens then?" and she just stared at me with a puzzled look on her face.

And thats about it.

Oh, wait. I almost forgot. A few nights ago, I was doing a research on trying to find out if there were any vending machines out there that accepted halves, and I found one website that said their Coca Cola machines sold cans of Coke for 75 cents, and the machine only accepted halves and quarters. So, obviouslu, they're out there. Maybe some select few companies chose to upgrade their machines to accept halves. The Coke machine that was jammed up with coins at my local Walmart has cans or bottles for $1 and they have a slot big enough to comfortably fit halves, so I'm wondering if thats one of those machines that were upgraded, and were 75 cents, and were later raised to $1 in price.

Well, that's it for now, on my reports on my quest to circulate odd money. Oh, and, no word on whether the Federal Reserve is getting close to annoucing a release date for the new $100 bills either. But it has to be soon, because I was told that the Feds don't like releasing new currency around the hoildays, or past October, so you gotta figure this month or next month, otherwise, we may be waiting until some time in 2014 or beyond.

That is all, and next week, when I make a few more calls, I'll keep whoever is interested, updated.