The new $1 coin.....

[poltr1]

Today the US Mint rolled out the first in a series of Presidential commemorative one-dollar coins.

I really hope the coin catches on this time. It hasn't in the past. The Eisenhower dollar coin was too big, and the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin looked and felt too much like a quarter. The Sacajawea dollar coin had a smooth edge and a gold tint to it, which made it look and feel different from a quarter. But they never caught on with the American public.

While they may be more expensive to produce than dollar bills, the coin has a longer usable life. Unfortunately, Americans are used to their dollar bills and are reluctant to switch or give them up. I'm afraid that's what it's going to take for Americans to start using the dollar coin.

When the Canadian "loonie" $1 coin was rolled out, the government of Canada stopped printing their $1 bills, thus forcing them to use the coin. And it is a nice coin. It has beveled edges on it so that I can reach in my pocket and know it's a loonie. They've since done the same with the "toonie" $2 coin.

Comments

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

Anybody who couldn't tell a Sacagawea dollar from a quarter couldn't tell a quarter from a nickel. What I hear from billroper is that the Treasury has warehouses full of SBAs that they couldn't get rid of because almost everyone hated them, and they started trying to dump them on people that wanted Sacs -- so when you went to the bank to get a roll of Sacs you got a bunch of SBAs that you couldn't use as a customer without annoying yourself or the merchant and you couldn't use as a merchant without annoying your customers -- so whatever support there was for Sacs was crushed under renewed hatred of SBAs.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Hunh. That's an interesting story. Thanks. I do know that there was what seemed like a desperate attempt to force SBA dollars into circulation through the 80s and 90s by giving them as change in government operated vending machines such as those for stamps, commuter railroad tickets, and so on. I remember buying a $3.50-ish ticket on SEPTA (Philadelphia's transit agency) commuter rail from a ticket vending machine and getting SBAs as change.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

I don't think the vending machines are a government plot -- I think it's the operators that want them. It's much easier to make a vending machine that accepts or gives change in dollar coins than in dollar bills. The simpler machines costs less, both initially and in maintenance costs. The vending machine industry was, I believe, the only sector of the economy that liked SBAs.