Dollar Coin Alliance News

Here is my latest email to the Dollar Coin Alliance:

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ME:

I was just wondering if you could tell me how the "$1 Bill Vs. Dollar Coin" issue is going, and if the dollar coin is still gaining popularity. Is there any chance of the COINS Act passing later on this year?



And also, I know we have talked about this before, but I was told by a couple local grocery stores with self checkout machines, all of which I know accept dollar coins and $2 bills, and some accept half dollar coins as well (the self checkouts at my local Walmart accept halves) and I asked the store managers if they could make their self checkouts so that they could dispense dollar coins, $2 bills and halves as needed. Well, they told me they could not reconfigure the current machines to do so, and that they would have to replace all of their current machines with new ones that are equipt to handle dispensing these three denominations. So, since these machines may need to be replaced in order to dispense dollar coins, and I'm sure making a bill cassette for the $2 bill to be dispensed in the place of the $1 bill would not be to difficult or costly, as there would just need to be some reprogramming done to the $1 bill cassette, could you please have the Dollar Coin Alliance lobby for all new self checkout machines to be made to be able to not only accept and dispense dollar coins as needed, but accept and dispense $2 bills and halves as needed as well?



Same goes with all vending machines, except with the $2 bill could you lobby for all vending machines to accept this denomination, and as for the dollar coin and the half, could you lobby to get these machines to be equipt to both accept and dispense dollar coins and halves? Retooling many vending machines to accept $2 bills and dispense both halves and dollar coins could be costly, but if the machines were updated for both halves and the dollar coins, and to accept the $2 bill, doing the setting up of machines for all three denominations at the same time would be less costly, than retooling for one denomination, and coming back for the other one or two later. I believe that if $2 bills are accepted and dispensed by self checkouts, and the same with halves and both denominations could be used in vending machines, the $2 bill and half would circulate, with the $1 bill eliminated and replaced with a circulating dollar coin, just as Australia's $2 coins and half dollar coins both circulate very well, and the half-Euro and one and two-Euro coins also circulate quite well, I believe. So, why not try to get our $2 and 50 cent denominations circulating once more?



I understand that the Dollar Coin Alliance's FIRST and MAIN GOAL is to eliminate the $1 bill, before doing any other currency reforms, but I am only mentioning these ideas, because they should be done right AFTER the $1 bill is eliminated and the vending and self checkout industries replace and/or retool their machines for dollar coins, to accept $2 bills and halves as well, in order to save the vending and self checkout companies money, and ease the transaction to three (well two old denominations really) new denominations of U.S. coins and currency.



Please let me know how things are going and if you can get the vending industry and self checkout industry to jump on the $2 bill and half dollar coin bandwagon, along with the dollar coin bandwagon.



Thank You for your time once again, and I hope to hear from you soon.

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DOLLAR COIN ALLIANCE:

Great news, Congressman Fitzpatrick (R-PA) is planning to introduce the House version of the COINS Act next week. We hope to have 20+ cosponsors. We also hope to have an op-ed printed in the Philly Inquirer later this week. I love your ideas, but we're first and foremost focused on the dollar coin, sticking to our knitting as they say.



Glad of your interest,

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Well, at least some more progress is being made, toward ditching our "rag buck" but I really hope that they help me with the $2 bill and half issue as well, seeing as, since I was told by store managers themselves that they would need to completely scrap out and replace their self checkout machines completely, with new ones to "dispense" dollar coins as needed, even though most already accept them, I think it would be wise to make the machines also to use $2 bills and halves as needed, and while $2 bills would likely be easy, as I said, because they could be programmed into $1 bill dispenser cassettes, the dispensing halves may be a bit more of a tricky set up. If this move is made though, I wonder how long it would be before the Fed's half supply dwindled, and they would have to mint more halves for general circulation. I also hope that if the DCA succeeds in getting rid of the $1 bill, that they still help me lobby for $200 and $500 bills. I don't know if I have much of a shot $1,000 bills, but it sure would be nice.