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 Replies: 18 / Views: 3,273 |
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Pillar of the Community
708 Posts |
Well, I went into my local Walmart on the other side of the store with my mother, and on the way out, my mom wanted a can of Country Time lemonade from a vending machine that took $1 bills, (and presumably, quarters) the beverages were $0.50, and when I inserted a $1 bill into the machine, it ejected the can of lemonade, and spit out two quarters, So, why not upgrade this machine to spit out halves instead? Why weren't these machines made to accept and dispense halves in the first place? I mean, I know one half weigh just as much as the two quarters you get back in change, but isn't it easier to deal with less coins, rather than more? Or couldn't the vending industry have lobbied for an even smaller half when the lobbied for a smaller dollar coin? If all of these machines were equipped to accept and dispense halves (and $2 bills), they would...Aww forger it. You already know the rest... P.S. I almost forgot:  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
807 Posts |
The real questions are, what is the optimum transition point to paper from metallic currency, and, what is the optimum ratio of denominations? It's fairly clear that 2:1 is too close, & 5:1 is too far. From a strictly mathematical perspective, it appears that splitting the decade roughly in half (relying on the fact that the square root of 10 is 3.16) with a sequence such as 1, 3, 10, 30, 100 or 5, 15, 50 would allow making change with the fewest coins in one payment, & the smallest number of individual denominations. The binary sequence we inherited from Spain 25-50-100-200 doesn't really work too well, or mesh with the ill-spaced 1-5-10 at the lower end. |
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Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21786 Posts |
I find it impossible to understand why Americans will not use Half Dollars, but Australians very commonly use theirs in normal circulation. They are both roughly the same diameter and weight.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
807 Posts |
Actually the Australian ones are substantially bigger & heavier.
I was quite interested by the way the 50¢, $1, & $2 coins co-circulated when I was there a couple of years ago, whereas in Canada the $1 & $2 circulate heavily but the 50¢ has wholly disappeared.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
A friend of mine has a vending machine company where he distributes his machines to companies. He has to maintain them too. With the baby dollar sized coins he said no way is he going to spend money to change all his machines for those. I asked about the half dollars. He said the same thing. The way they are made is the way he leaves them. Just to much work.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
1747 Posts |
I bought a couple of soda machines about a year ago, and up in Canada, our $1 and $2 coins recently changed weights, and has caused issues with vending machines as well as at the banks themselves. the simple idea of "Just changing" it to spit out halves is absolutely ludicrous!
for instance the coin mech inside alone costs $500 just imagine having to change 5,10 or thousand's of these?
I get that we are coin people and that's our passion, but its not the majorities passion.
the 50cent piece is from a time when 50 cents was a lot of money a weeks pay perhaps, now 50 cents doesn't buy a whole lot.
If you want to circulate the half dollar keep your pockets full and spend them as you can.
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Moderator
 United States
187654 Posts |
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...in Canada, our $1 and $2 coins recently changed weights... Interesting, I did not know this. |
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Valued Member
United States
194 Posts |
Do you know hat the cost would be too change Millions of vending machines to accept half dollars that almost nobody uses ? You would first have to Pay them for the changes. It's just a business after all. It would make no Sence or Cents for that matter...
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5197 Posts |
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the beverages were $0.50, and when I inserted a $1 bill into the machine, it ejected the can of lemonade, and spit out two quarters, So, why not upgrade this machine to spit out halves instead And what happens when they raise the price to 60¢ ? |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
I didn't either. Quote:
I find it impossible to understand why Americans will not use Half Dollars, but Australians very commonly use theirs in normal circulation. Probably because the Australians don't have 25 cent pieces. To pay a 50 cent amount you would have to use 2 20 cent coins an a 10 cent coin. Three coins with a total weight of 28.2 grams or one fifty cent coin that weighs 15.5 grams. You have a two coin advantage in both fewer coins and lower weight to use the fifty cent while we have just a one fewer coin improvement and no weight savings. |
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Valued Member
Canada
261 Posts |
Quote:Quote:
...in Canada, our $1 and $2 coins recently changed weights... Interesting, I did not know this. All our coins, except the penny, shed some weight when they made the switch to plated steel. The $1 & $2 were just the most recent (2012 compared to 2000.) There are probably more reasons to NOT have a circulating 50¢ coin in Canada than there are to have one. It's just too big and heavy to fit into our current denomination scheme. |
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Moderator
United States
187654 Posts |
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All our coins, except the penny, shed some weight when they made the switch to plated steel. The $1 & $2 were just the most recent (2012 compared to 2000.) Ah, I knew the others had changed previously, but did not realize these two did recently. Thank you. |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
10029 Posts |
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, it ejected the can of lemonade, and spit out two quarters, So, why not upgrade this machine to spit out halves instead? Why weren't these machines made to accept and dispense halves in the first place? I would think the practical answer to this would be that having lower denomination coins makes returning of the amount of change due to have more options. If the price went up so the machine owed you back .25 instead of .50, the machine is capable of handling that also. If the .50 were the basis, then it could only handled .50 increments in pricing and change. Why was it not, then, fitted for both? Why bother with the added space/mechanism/programming for a place to hold the halves in the machine when two quarters give more options and suffice? A good engineer/designer looks for the most efficient way to solve problems that also include the most options. ...but this is just a guess... How much squash could a Sasquatch squash if a Sasquatch would squash squash? Download and read: Grading the graders Costly TPG ineptitude and No FG Kennedy halveshttps://ln5.sync.com/dl/7ca91bdd0/w...i3b-rbj9fir2 |
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Moderator
Australia
16806 Posts |
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What is the optimum ratio of denominations? There's more to improving the currency than optimizing the denominations. There's a mathematical paper on this problem. They concluded that replacing the dime with an eighteen-cent-piece would result in a 17% increase in coin handling efficiency. They fail to take into account the decrease in efficiency that would result from non-mathematicians trying to use such a denomination. Normal people prefer to count in base-10, not base-18. The number 10 only has two factors, 2 and 5. This is why the "natural" sequence for a truly decimal coinage system has always been regarded to be .01, .02, .05, .10, .20, .50, 1, 2, 5. This offers the best compromise between ease of counting, minimum coins needed to give change and the minimum number of different denominations required. Quote:
I find it impossible to understand why Americans will not use Half Dollars, but Australians very commonly use theirs in normal circulation.
Probably because the Australians don't have 25 cent pieces.This. Sorry, Fox, but if you want 50 cent coins to be part of your everyday experience, the worldwide experience has shown that you need to replace your 25 cent coin with a 20 cent coin. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Pillar of the Community
 708 Posts |
@Sap
Yes, this was the answer, but I have read that, one of the members here, went to the Euro Zone, and tried spending a few larger Euros in order to receive a 50 cent Euro coin in change, because they have 10 and 20 cent Euros there, but they kept getting back 10 and 20 cent Euro coins instead of Euro halves.
However, about two decades ago, when I was talking with Jim Benfield, he told me that, the U.S. should have stuck to the 20-cent coin instead of the quarter, but its too late now, now that machines are set up to take quarters, and the vending industry would take a large hit to switch to the 20-cent coin. But back then, me and Jim were talking about efforts to get rid of the half, just so that it wouldn't get in the way of the dollar coin's circulation, but we did both support a $2 and even a $5 coin, and that was all the way back in the 1990s. All that time has passed and we STILL don't have a circulating dollar coin, when we also should have had circulating $2 and $5 coins way back then.
So, don't quite count on the 20-cent coin replacing the quarter saving the half from oblivian here in the U.S. as it doesn't seem to be working much greater in Europe, where they have 20-cent coins. But the real reason me and Jim were talking about the U.S. 20-cent coin being the better deal, over the quarter, was because of the ability to eliminate the nickel easier.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
807 Posts |
I've read papers on denomination assortment. I've even thought of writing one. Of course the idea of an eighteen-cent piece is silly ; but if your prices end in nines, being able to pay out three threes instead of a five & four ones is a decided advantage.
Modern coin mechanisms are often "universal" & programmable. They'll accept anything in size up to the Australian 50¢, & you program them by running a whole roll of coins through the mechanism so that it recognizes them (using the same coin over again would program it to accept only that specific piece.), then set the value. There is a finite number of program slots, of course, but I've seen up to 16. The Detroit-Windsor tunnel bus dropped support for the least commonly used denomination (US dime & dollar) in order to accommodate the new Canadian $1s & $2s, but simpler mechs such as those in parking meters have been trouble.
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Replies: 18 / Views: 3,273 |
Posted 05/12/2015 03:07 am
