As I had plenty of time looking through a few thousand CRH coins without hitting that big (or little) score, my mind got to wanderin'. We have some good threads about putting underutilized legal tender into circulation, for awareness, coolness, differentness, etc. There are many more dollar and half dollar coins and two dollar bills in use because of these efforts.
Well, what about cents? As has been pointed out in many threads, nobody really *uses* cents. They, too, are underutilized. They get minted, the mints ships them, they get handed to folks by cashiers (generally because of taxes making a purchase price uneven), then they get tossed out, stuck in a drawer/bucket/can, or put into the "take a penny" bin next to the cash register. They don't even make into wishing wells any more. The wish fairies don't want pennies.
The government (well, the US government anyway) just thinks there is this huge demand for these unloved coins so they just keep making more. Billions more.
When was the last time you used pennies to actually *pay* for anything?
So, should we start a campaign like the dollar coin campaign to use pennies in commerce to pay for stuff? And then keep track here how many pennies are dumped, er, spent? Will that make cents good or good cents?
For the record, I don't think so. I just don't see haulin' a five or ten pound sack of metal to pay for a happy meal. And cashiers today can't actually count, anyways.
I think everybody should just take all those old, really old, pennies and go cash them in at your local bank so they get recycled to those folks looking through thousands of coins to score some wheaties. These folks {raises hand} actually *want* them. And the shield cents can get sent back to the mint.
The only time I use pennies is to avoid getting pennies in change. I couldn't go in to a store an pay for something with a ten pound sack of pennies, I'd feel too inconsiderate of the cashier's time and effort compared to using paper money.
The dollar coin and half dollar (to a lesser extent) projects make much more sense to me since those denominations can make transactions more convenient, not less so.
Sad but true. And when I try to pay with a $1 coin, they either don'y know what it is, or complain there is no slot in the tray for it. These are my great struggles in life, but I'm a survivor.
They do not know. It is true. I payed for a gift card with an activation fee of $5.95 with 242 dollars. Really easy math. $236.05 to be loaded into the card, it took her 1 minute of thinking before going to the calculator. What?
I disagree with not making anymore Cents. I think we should go back and start making 2 Cent, 3 Cent, 20 Cent coins again too. Then also start making the 2 and 4 dollar coin too. No 3 Cent coins though. To much is to much. I also think we should start making 3, 4, 25 dollar bills too. Since I seldom use anything but a credit card, wouldn't bother me at all. I do wonder what a cashier at a store would look like trying to figure it all out.
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Posted 07/03/2015 10:09 am
