How come we do not use our 2 dollar bills or our one dollar coin?

[jeffandnicole]

The $2 bill was never widely accepted by the general public. I had heard one of the reasons is that the "2" looked too much like a 1 or 5 at quick glance.

[1995hoo]

My nickel (rounded up from 2c . . . ), FWIW.

It currently costs more than face value to mint cents and nickels, so the U.S. Mint is losing money by making (this) money.  The cent should be discontinued and the nickel re-alloyed, perhaps with the zinc available from the cent.  There is enough copper and nickel (the metal) in the dime and quarter to keep the mines churning.

....

I'm not sure it's as simple as just re-alloying the specification. From what I read about the introduction of the Sacagawea dollar, including on the Mint's website, apparently many vending machines can somehow recognize the alloy's electromagnetic properties–the Mint went to some pains to ensure the Sacagawea had the same electromagnetic properties as the Susan B. Anthony in order to be sure vending machines could accept both coins interchangeably. The same is true of the presidential dollar coins issued some years later, of course.

That leads me to assume if you changed the specification for what metals are used in any existing coin, you would introduce unintended problems. Of course the cost of refitting vending machines isn't the government's problem, but (as noted earlier in the thread) it's part of why changing anything to do with money always becomes contentious.

[roadman]

The $2 bill was never widely accepted by the general public. I had heard one of the reasons is that the "2" looked too much like a 1 or 5 at quick glance.

Which is the reason that neither of the $1 coins have gained widespread acceptance.  In a pocket full of change, they feel too much like a quarter.

[oscar]

The $2 bill was never widely accepted by the general public. I had heard one of the reasons is that the "2" looked too much like a 1 or 5 at quick glance.

The other story is that $2 bills were too closely associated with $2 horse race bets.

Rather than get rid of anything, we could probably just shift its values. Make the penny 25 cents, the nickel 50 cents, the dime 1 dollar, the quarter 2 dollars, the current 1 the 5, the 2 the 10, the 5 the 20, the 10 the 50, the 20 the 100, the 50 the 200, the 100 the 500. Just keep the pictures and sizes the same but change the monetary value of it.

Re-denominating is a lot more complicated than just dropping a coin- you'd essentially have to do an entire recall of currency (good luck with that) and then redistribute, otherwise you have old pennies and new pennies floating around en masse with varying values.

It's worse than that -- unless the new pennies, etc. were redone to be easily distinguishable (both visually and by vending, Coinstar, or other machines) from the old ones, people who hung on to their old money and especially old coins could make instant big profits from using old money at the new values.  That would be illegal, but good luck enforcing that, especially for anonymous machine transactions.

[oscar]

Which is the reason that neither of the $1 coins have gained widespread acceptance.  In a pocket full of change, they feel too much like a quarter.

Which seems not to be a problem with Canada's dollar coin.  The reeded edges of quarters vs. the non-reeded edges of dollar coins (which are also thicker), in both Canada and the U.S., seem to do the trick even for the blind.

[1995hoo]

In addition, the loonie isn't round.

[Big John]

The $2 bill was never widely accepted by the general public. I had heard one of the reasons is that the "2" looked too much like a 1 or 5 at quick glance.

Moreso the $20 bill as it looked at that time.

[PHLBOS]

Regarding the dollar bill/coin debate . . . I am not sure if new $2 are printed as regularly as the $1.  I don't see too many with series dates other than 1976 or 1995.

The fore-mentioned $2 bills I got while at the Oregon State Fair several years ago, I believe, were 2002 series.  I will check when I get home tonight.

[empirestate]

The issue to me is the removal of Abe Lincoln and George Washington from the face of our coins and currency.  They would still be on the $5 and quarter, respectively, but it is still a contentious matter.

They've also both appeared on dollar coins. If it were that big a deal, then just make the standard dollar coins be the ones with Lincoln's or Washington's likeness on them.

[1995hoo]

The $2 bill was never widely accepted by the general public. I had heard one of the reasons is that the "2" looked too much like a 1 or 5 at quick glance.

Moreso the $20 bill as it looked at that time.

Funny, I never saw any more resemblance between those two than I did between any other US bills (which, prior to the current ones, pretty much all looked very similar to each other compared to most countries' money).



 

[jeffandnicole]

Except, that's how the bills would look when laid out on a table.  For most people, they are quickly reaching into a wallet to take the bills out, and only momentarily glance at the number.

[vdeane]

Take off the blinders–it's the Freemasons keeping us using dollar bill to advance their mysterious plans!  Just look at all that mumbo-jumbo on there.  It's how they send their secret messages around! 

I don't know of anything going on with the $1 bill, but the $100 bill has the clue to how you get the spectacles that you need to read the map on the back of the Declaration of Independence and find the treasure.

Rather than get rid of anything, we could probably just shift its values. Make the penny 25 cents, the nickel 50 cents, the dime 1 dollar, the quarter 2 dollars, the current 1 the 5, the 2 the 10, the 5 the 20, the 10 the 50, the 20 the 100, the 50 the 200, the 100 the 500. Just keep the pictures and sizes the same but change the monetary value of it.

Re-denominating is a lot more complicated than just dropping a coin- you'd essentially have to do an entire recall of currency (good luck with that) and then redistribute, otherwise you have old pennies and new pennies floating around en masse with varying values.

Nah, no need to recall, just be sure to let me know so I can convert all my assets to cash for the day this occurs

[kkt]

The penny has been the smallest unit of currency since 1857, when the half-cent coin was discontinued. Adjusted for the CPI, that half cent coin–too valueless to justify minting–would be worth 14¢ today. And so the smallest coin in 1857, the penny, was worth the equivalent of 28¢.

Wow! I knew that coins used to have so much more value. That makes so much sense.

Rather than get rid of anything, we could probably just shift its values. Make the penny 25 cents, the nickel 50 cents, the dime 1 dollar, the quarter 2 dollars, the current 1 the 5, the 2 the 10, the 5 the 20, the 10 the 50, the 20 the 100, the 50 the 200, the 100 the 500. Just keep the pictures and sizes the same but change the monetary value of it.

So a big jar full of loose change is suddenly worth 10x as much?  I don't think they're going to do that.

There are countries that have changed their money.  Notably France in 1960 changed to New Francs, each worth 100 old Francs.  All the new bills were labelled NF for the first few years and old 1 Franc coins circulated as centimes.

[GaryV]

The gummit doesn't want bills over $100 because it helps in the war against illegal transactions (drugs, gambling, etc).  The stack of money gets too big to trundle around unobtrusively.

[oscar]

The gummit doesn't want bills over $100 because it helps in the war against illegal transactions (drugs, gambling, etc).  The stack of money gets too big to trundle around unobtrusively.

So criminals have to use €500 bills instead?  (Maybe not so useful for domestic crime, but no problem for international transactions.)  Yeah, right.

The U.S. government benefits from having its currency, rather than Euros, used for black-market transactions, at least if those transactions can't be prevented in the first place.   

[1995hoo]

I got the impression the general public doesn't even use the €200 all that much. Every time I've used one, the cashier has done a double-take (but has never balked at accepting it, unlike some McDonald's cashiers if you try to use an American $50).

Canada had a $1000 bill until 2000, at which time it was withdrawn due in part to pressure from the RCMP because it was used in money laundering–similar to how the €500 is sometimes called the "gangster's note."

[lepidopteran]

Actually, dollar coins are in use if you ride one of at least 2 subway systems.  In both the NY and DC metro/subway, if you purchase a fare card from a vending machine and there is more than $1 in change, you will probably receive dollar coins.  These can be a mixture of president coins, Sacagawea, or even Susan B. Anthony.  Note that there is a limit of like $8 in change for any one transaction.

Way back in (circa) 1980, I saw this on a pinball machine coin slot: "One S.B.A. dollar, 5 plays"

I heard 3 reasons that the $2 bill did not catch on:

• People were saving them as a novelty item
• Only so many drawers in cash registers (or as they're called now, point-of-sale terminals)
• They somehow got a stigma from being associated with $2 bets at horse race tracks.

[bugo]

I found a 1943 steel penny underneath the Coinstar machine a couple of days ago.

[Pete from Boston]

MBTA and USPS vending machines were my most regular suppliers of dollar coins.  However, vending machines pretty much all take plastic now, so no funny money for me.

[bugo]

I got a 1981-S SBA dollar about a month ago. I looked at it closely and it turns out that it is an impaired proof (a circulated proof). I'll be keeping it.

[roadman]

Actually, dollar coins are in use if you ride one of at least 2 subway systems.  In both the NY and DC metro/subway, if you purchase a fare card from a vending machine and there is more than $1 in change, you will probably receive dollar coins.  These can be a mixture of president coins, Sacagawea, or even Susan B. Anthony.  Note that there is a limit of like $8 in change for any one transaction.

Way back in (circa) 1980, I saw this on a pinball machine coin slot: "One S.B.A. dollar, 5 plays"

I heard 3 reasons that the $2 bill did not catch on:

• People were saving them as a novelty item
• Only so many drawers in cash registers (or as they're called now, point-of-sale terminals)
• They somehow got a stigma from being associated with $2 bets at horse race tracks.

Boston's MBTA subway fare machines give change in $1 coins as well.  Just one of the ways the system is deliberatly designed to encourage people to use credit or debit cards instead of cash.

[6a]

As to coins, the Canadian government mandated the phase-out of the $1 and $2 bills when they introduced the coins. The US government refuses to abandon the $1 bill (the vending machine lobby have fought to keep it because they installed those bill-taking thingies and they don't want to refit the coin slots). Phase out the bill so people have no choice and it becomes easy as the bills wear out.

*puts on vending guy hat*

Bills are a pain in the ass for us, in general. Increasingly our machines take both $1 and $5 bills at a minimum (all take $1s), some accept up to a $20. The big bill machines pay back in $5s and...wait for it...$1 coins. There is no retrofitting to be done for a machine to take a dollar coin vs a bill, those are two separate pieces of equipment internally.  Additionally, there is no special work that needs done for a machine to accept a dollar coin. If the coin mechanism itself can't store one it simply drops it into a holding bucket like any other coin that would be considered overflow.

As for why we haven't changed over to coins, I have a theory. The U.S. Is a sentimental nation; in many cases overly so. Getting rid of the penny or dollar bill would mean losing something that's always been there ("always" meaning since grandma was alive, etc.) there just simply isn't political will to piss off people over a penny.


Edit:

It's so annoying to me that most vending machines will still only take ones, even though sodas are close to two dollars now and all of the snacks are at least a dollar. We just got new touchscreen machines at school, so it's not like they can't change the technology to do so.

I'm about to piss you off   The vending machine's capability to accept a $5 is done with a simple flick of a switch on the bill acceptor. Every machine you see that only takes ones is set that way on purpose.  Most usually it's because taking fives causes the machine to run through its coin storage when giving change. Not a big problem when it's serviced regularly. Huge problem (EXACT CHANGE ONLY) when it's not serviced often.

[bulldog1979]

I'm not sure it's as simple as just re-alloying the specification. From what I read about the introduction of the Sacagawea dollar, including on the Mint's website, apparently many vending machines can somehow recognize the alloy's electromagnetic properties–the Mint went to some pains to ensure the Sacagawea had the same electromagnetic properties as the Susan B. Anthony in order to be sure vending machines could accept both coins interchangeably. The same is true of the presidential dollar coins issued some years later, of course.

That leads me to assume if you changed the specification for what metals are used in any existing coin, you would introduce unintended problems. Of course the cost of refitting vending machines isn't the government's problem, but (as noted earlier in the thread) it's part of why changing anything to do with money always becomes contentious.

The coin counter we used when I worked in a retail store's accounting office used electrical resistance to count coins. The resistance value of the Susan B. Anthony "silver" dollar and that of the Sacajawea/president "gold" dollar is the same. The machine can't tell the difference between the two. Another result of this method is that all silver coins that came through the registers were rejected as "fake" because the resistance value of silver is different than the various alloys used.

[Scott5114]

If you're going to add a high-denom note, skip the $200 and bring back the $500. As a casino cashier, I would find it immensely handy since $1200, the minimum jackpot amount, would go from 12 pieces to 4. Plus it would be fun seeing everyone wonder who the hell William McKinley is.

[1995hoo]

Needs a spiffier design on the back, though.