Funny money?

[6a]

Because 50 cent pieces are not collectable and have no value beyond that as currency.

They sure are a pain in the ass to those of us in the vending industry, though.  For some reason people try to use them to buy snacks and they end up jamming in the coin mech.  Then other people try to buy snacks with real money and jam it even more.  Same thing with pennies - who tries to use 150 pennies to buy a bottle of Coke anyway?

[Brandon]

Because 50 cent pieces are not collectable and have no value beyond that as currency.

They sure are a pain in the ass to those of us in the vending industry, though.  For some reason people try to use them to buy snacks and they end up jamming in the coin mech.  Then other people try to buy snacks with real money and jam it even more.  Same thing with pennies - who tries to use 150 pennies to buy a bottle of Coke anyway?

The same folks who put 75 pennies in a change basket on the Tollway.

[mgk920]

Because 50 cent pieces are not collectable and have no value beyond that as currency.

They sure are a pain in the ass to those of us in the vending industry, though.  For some reason people try to use them to buy snacks and they end up jamming in the coin mech.  Then other people try to buy snacks with real money and jam it even more.  Same thing with pennies - who tries to use 150 pennies to buy a bottle of Coke anyway?

'Real' money?  50¢ coins ARE 'real' money, just like any other denomination.  It was the vending machine industry that just out of the blue decided to stop taking them several decades ago.

I find it most annoying that we're currently stuck using banknotes that have little buying power left in them anymore.  What can one buy with just one $1 note (or even one quarter, for that matter!) these days?  Me?  A single 25¢ coin will buy me a whopping 20 minutes from a parking meter here in downtown Appleton.  A normal trip to the laundry now requires me to use EIGHTEEN of them (nearly half a roll) - that is one incredible load of metal for a relatively small transaction.

With today's prices, we should be using coins up to at least $10 now.

Yes, I would be much more willing to use vending machines if the USA had a much more convenient slate of coins v. banknotes (Canada, Australia, Japan, the Eurozone, etc, are all much closer to that correct balance than we are).



BTW, bugo, according to http://www.coinflation.com, as of this typing, your 1964-D quarter has $3.52 worth of metal in it, 1408.44% of 'face' value.

Mike

[6a]

'Real' money?  50¢ coins ARE 'real' money, just like any other denomination.  It was the vending machine industry that just out of the blue decided to stop taking them several decades ago.

That was a joke.  I should have learned by now that sarcasm doesn't work here.

Anyway, I have some older $1 and $2 notes from Canada around here somewhere.  I just moved not too long ago so when I find them I'll take a picture.  The most striking thing about them is the portrait of a young Queen

I find it most annoying that we're currently stuck using banknotes that have little buying power left in them anymore.  What can one buy with just one $1 note (or even one quarter, for that matter!) these days?  Me?  A single 25¢ coin will buy me a whopping 20 minutes from a parking meter here in downtown Appleton.  A normal trip to the laundry now requires me to use EIGHTEEN of them (nearly half a roll) - that is one incredible load of metal for a relatively small transaction.

With today's prices, we should be using coins up to at least $10 now.

Our meters take credit cards now, which was odd at first but quite useful. 

The odd thing is we used to have coins for higher dollar values, even when said coins bought a whole lot more than they would today.

[mgk920]

'Real' money?  50¢ coins ARE 'real' money, just like any other denomination.  It was the vending machine industry that just out of the blue decided to stop taking them several decades ago.

That was a joke.  I should have learned by now that sarcasm doesn't work here.

No, it's not that sarcasm doesn't work here, it is that the written language does not come with the tonal inflections that the spoken one does - thus losing the ability to say the exact same sentence in two different ways and have it come out with two completely different meanings.

Anyway, I have some older $1 and $2 notes from Canada around here somewhere.  I just moved not too long ago so when I find them I'll take a picture.  The most striking thing about them is the portrait of a young Queen

I find it most annoying that we're currently stuck using banknotes that have little buying power left in them anymore.  What can one buy with just one $1 note (or even one quarter, for that matter!) these days?  Me?  A single 25¢ coin will buy me a whopping 20 minutes from a parking meter here in downtown Appleton.  A normal trip to the laundry now requires me to use EIGHTEEN of them (nearly half a roll) - that is one incredible load of metal for a relatively small transaction.

With today's prices, we should be using coins up to at least $10 now.

Our meters take credit cards now, which was odd at first but quite useful. 

The odd thing is we used to have coins for higher dollar values, even when said coins bought a whole lot more than they would today.

Yea on the gold coins - and in the days of the gold standard, a quarter would buy a decent lunch for yourself AND a business associate - and nearly all 'small time' daily commerce was in coins only.

BTW, I am not at all comfortable using 'plastic' for piddly small-time things like lunch and parking meters - what happens when the power fails?  That's what cash (especially coins) is for.

Mike

[kphoger]

Because 50 cent pieces are not collectable and have no value beyond that as currency.

They sure are a pain in the ass to those of us in the vending industry, though.  For some reason people try to use them to buy snacks and they end up jamming in the coin mech.  Then other people try to buy snacks with real money and jam it even more.  Same thing with pennies - who tries to use 150 pennies to buy a bottle of Coke anyway?

The same folks who put 75 pennies in a change basket on the Tollway.

Oh, were you behind me?  I've dumped a Frisbee full of pennies into the baskets before.  Best way ever to get rid of pennies.  I've also paid bus fare with nickles and dimes before.

[oscar]

The dollar coin issue has come up again in the U.S., this time with Sen. McCain discussing the potential positive impact on the all-important stripper sector of our economy:

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/07/26/john-mccain-dollar-coins-good-for-strippers/#!slide=44919

This subtopic was previously discussed way up in this thread (search for the "use the coin slot" suggestion, not exactly what the Senator has in mind). 

Canadians on this forum can tell us how the elimination of dollar and two-dollar bills has affected the strippers up there.  You don't have to tell us how you know

[Road Hog]

Making it hail. 

Previous coin efforts didn't provide for the elimination of the bill. Once you get rid of the bills, people will stop hoarding coins.

[bugo]

A guy spent these in the store I work in, so I immediately bought them at face value.  They are 1952-P and 1953-D Franklin half dollars.  They are 90% silver.  The local coin shop buys them for $6.25 so I got a great deal.  I'll never part with them, as they're going into my permanent collection (which is at an undisclosed location out of state.)

[bugo]

Kind of like how, just yesterday, I got a two-dollar bill at the bank (HOLY CRAP 1976 BICENTENNIAL YEAR) for exactly two dollars.

If only they'd get Eisenhower dollars for me...

I've gotten 4 or 5 Ike dollars at work, including a bicentennial.  I also bought an uncirculated 40% silver 1973 (my birth year) Eisenhower dollar off ebay, which I paid much more than $1 for.

[bugo]

Because 50 cent pieces are not collectable and have no value beyond that as currency.

Bullshit.  Any 50 cent piece minted between 1965 and 1969 has 40% silver, and half dollars minted prior to 1965 are 90% fine silver.  They have a high melt value, but they also have collector value as well.  The two Franklin halves I found are definitely collectors' items. I also have a 1925 Stone Mountain half that is very collectable. 

Fixed quote. - rmf67

[SP Cook]

We were not discussing pre-Johnson sandwich coins.

[Molandfreak]

We were not discussing pre-Johnson sandwich coins.

This...

Because 50 cent pieces are not collectable and have no value beyond that as currency.

...suggests that you are talking about ALL fifty cent pieces.

[Alps]

We were not discussing pre-Johnson sandwich coins.

Mmm, sandwich.

But I'll pass on the Johnson sandwich. Yuck.

[empirestate]

A guy spent these in the store I work in, so I immediately bought them at face value.  They are 1952-P and 1953-D Franklin half dollars.  They are 90% silver.  The local coin shop buys them for $6.25 so I got a great deal.  I'll never part with them, as they're going into my permanent collection (which is at an undisclosed location out of state.)

Hmm, that's brings up an interesting point. Could the owner of the store (assuming it isn't you) lay any claim to the $6.25 you got for those? If a piece of currency is transacted at face value, but has intrinsic worth above its value as currency, who owns that value?

I'm not suggesting any malfeasance here, just interested as a hypothetical curiosity. There must be some ethical numismatic rule about this, if not actual law, since I'm sure coin shops frequently buy pieces that have been traded out of a cash drawer, and I can't imagine in the history of coin collecting that some shop owner hasn't come after the money earned by one of his clerks in this way. :-)

[Alps]

A guy spent these in the store I work in, so I immediately bought them at face value.  They are 1952-P and 1953-D Franklin half dollars.  They are 90% silver.  The local coin shop buys them for $6.25 so I got a great deal.  I'll never part with them, as they're going into my permanent collection (which is at an undisclosed location out of state.)

Hmm, that's brings up an interesting point. Could the owner of the store (assuming it isn't you) lay any claim to the $6.25 you got for those? If a piece of currency is transacted at face value, but has intrinsic worth above its value as currency, who owns that value?

I'm not suggesting any malfeasance here, just interested as a hypothetical curiosity. There must be some ethical numismatic rule about this, if not actual law, since I'm sure coin shops frequently buy pieces that have been traded out of a cash drawer, and I can't imagine in the history of coin collecting that some shop owner hasn't come after the money earned by one of his clerks in this way. :-)

Any business transaction is conducted at face value if the coin is presented as legal tender, which it was in this case.

[empirestate]

Hmm, that's brings up an interesting point. Could the owner of the store (assuming it isn't you) lay any claim to the $6.25 you got for those? If a piece of currency is transacted at face value, but has intrinsic worth above its value as currency, who owns that value?

I'm not suggesting any malfeasance here, just interested as a hypothetical curiosity. There must be some ethical numismatic rule about this, if not actual law, since I'm sure coin shops frequently buy pieces that have been traded out of a cash drawer, and I can't imagine in the history of coin collecting that some shop owner hasn't come after the money earned by one of his clerks in this way. :-)

Any business transaction is conducted at face value if the coin is presented as legal tender, which it was in this case.

Precisely, that's where I'm starting my thinking as well. And then let's say a clerk makes change for himself out of his cash drawer, buying two 50-cent pieces in exchange for a paper dollar. Again, this transaction is conducted as legal tender at face value, so all's well and good; heck knows I used to do the same thing all the time myself.

But if the clerk then sells the 50-cent pieces for $6.25 apiece, he makes a profit of $11.50, because he is paid for the intrinsic value of the physical coins he possesses, minus their face value as legal tender. But were they his to sell; does he actually own the objects worth $11.50? Or are they the property of the shop owner, because they are collected as monetary receipts on the owner's behalf by his agent, the clerk? But...if we accept the latter, then they are collected on the basis of being worth 50 cents, no more or less, so the shop owner clearly doesn't have an extra $11.50 (if he did, he'd be required to give that sum as change for the 50-cent pieces tendered).

So somehow that extra value is created after two face-value transactions, or possibly before–I guess my question really is, at what point does that value come into existence, and to whom does it belong from that point until it is paid for by the coin dealer?

[vtk]

If the intrinsic value of a physical coin above face value is in fact not the property of the current possessor, then why would it be the property of any specific previous possessor?  The only logical conclusion is it's the property of the government that minted the coin.  That is, if it's not the property of the person who physically possesses it.

[bugo]

Hmm, that's brings up an interesting point. Could the owner of the store (assuming it isn't you) lay any claim to the $6.25 you got for those? If a piece of currency is transacted at face value, but has intrinsic worth above its value as currency, who owns that value?

I'm not suggesting any malfeasance here, just interested as a hypothetical curiosity. There must be some ethical numismatic rule about this, if not actual law, since I'm sure coin shops frequently buy pieces that have been traded out of a cash drawer, and I can't imagine in the history of coin collecting that some shop owner hasn't come after the money earned by one of his clerks in this way. :-)

Any business transaction is conducted at face value if the coin is presented as legal tender, which it was in this case.

Precisely, that's where I'm starting my thinking as well. And then let's say a clerk makes change for himself out of his cash drawer, buying two 50-cent pieces in exchange for a paper dollar. Again, this transaction is conducted as legal tender at face value, so all's well and good; heck knows I used to do the same thing all the time myself.

But if the clerk then sells the 50-cent pieces for $6.25 apiece, he makes a profit of $11.50, because he is paid for the intrinsic value of the physical coins he possesses, minus their face value as legal tender. But were they his to sell; does he actually own the objects worth $11.50? Or are they the property of the shop owner, because they are collected as monetary receipts on the owner's behalf by his agent, the clerk? But...if we accept the latter, then they are collected on the basis of being worth 50 cents, no more or less, so the shop owner clearly doesn't have an extra $11.50 (if he did, he'd be required to give that sum as change for the 50-cent pieces tendered).

So somehow that extra value is created after two face-value transactions, or possibly before–I guess my question really is, at what point does that value come into existence, and to whom does it belong from that point until it is paid for by the coin dealer?

It is irrelevant because I never have and never will sell my coins.

[empirestate]

If the intrinsic value of a physical coin above face value is in fact not the property of the current possessor, then why would it be the property of any specific previous possessor?  The only logical conclusion is it's the property of the government that minted the coin.  That is, if it's not the property of the person who physically possesses it.

Hadn't thought of that; does the mint issue an opinion on this subject? Has there been any case history on this? How would I even Google this?

If the value of the coin isn't the property of the possessor, why would (legitimate, law-abiding) coin dealers routinely pay for it?

It is irrelevant because I never have and never will sell my coins.

What if someone else sold your coins and pocketed the money; still irrelevant?

[oscar]

If the intrinsic value of a physical coin above face value is in fact not the property of the current possessor, then why would it be the property of any specific previous possessor?  The only logical conclusion is it's the property of the government that minted the coin.  That is, if it's not the property of the person who physically possesses it.

Depends on part on whether the current possessor has legitimate possession of it.  In the example above, on whether the store at which the silver half-dollar was spent allows the clerk to buy it at face value.  I don't remember the specific details from four decades ago, but at my first job at a McDonald's, I was not allowed to keep a silver half-dollar that came in at the front counter.  I'm not sure what happened to it, but think a supervisor (or whoever else emptied out my cash drawer at the end of the day) snatched it up for himself.  He would have had no more legitimate claim than I had, but he out-ranked me which was good enough.  Those without eagle-eyed supervisors looking over their shoulders, YMMV.

The U.S. Treasury has, AFAIK, no objection to people selling for scrap or melting down old silver coins to reap the scrap value, so long as the resulting capital gain is reported on tax returns.  It currently is prohibiting the private melting of copper pennies (whose current scrap value is also well above face value), but that was a hastily-adopted measure intended to maintain the supply of pennies in circulation and block one company's plan to systematically sweep copper pennies out of circulation.  I think Canada has a similar prohibition, though now that the Canadian penny is being phased out of circulation (with the government melting down all the pennies turned in by banks, which are prohibited from distributing them to customers), it will be interesting whether that prohibition lasts and penny-hoarders up there will be once more as free to sell their pennies for scrap as those with old silver Canadian coins. 

[Alps]

The value of a coin is whatever the possessor can get from it. In a business transaction, anything presented as legal tender is valued at face value. You can conduct a business transaction with the cash register, exchanging $20 for 5 gold stellas (this is a very hypothetical scenario, of course), and it's perfectly legal as long as the stellas are in there as legal tender, and not sold as goods. Once they are in your possession, you can then seek to sell them as goods instead of offering them as legal tender. And, as happens often with old coins, someone who purchases them as goods can turn around and reoffer them as legal tender as long as they have not been altered or defaced.

[kkt]

A guy spent these in the store I work in, so I immediately bought them at face value.  They are 1952-P and 1953-D Franklin half dollars.  They are 90% silver.  The local coin shop buys them for $6.25 so I got a great deal.  I'll never part with them, as they're going into my permanent collection (which is at an undisclosed location out of state.)

Hmm, that's brings up an interesting point. Could the owner of the store (assuming it isn't you) lay any claim to the $6.25 you got for those? If a piece of currency is transacted at face value, but has intrinsic worth above its value as currency, who owns that value?

I'm not suggesting any malfeasance here, just interested as a hypothetical curiosity. There must be some ethical numismatic rule about this, if not actual law, since I'm sure coin shops frequently buy pieces that have been traded out of a cash drawer, and I can't imagine in the history of coin collecting that some shop owner hasn't come after the money earned by one of his clerks in this way. :-)

The value of a coin above its face value belongs to the person who knows about and pays attention to the coins they get.

[empirestate]

The value of a coin above its face value belongs to the person who knows about and pays attention to the coins they get.

Makes sense. Could that person be the shop owner in this scenario? Can "get" mean "receive in the form of legal tender collected by one's employee or agent"? Or can it only mean "have direct sensory knowledge of and physical contact with"?

[Alps]

The value of a coin above its face value belongs to the person who knows about and pays attention to the coins they get.

Makes sense. Could that person be the shop owner in this scenario? Can "get" mean "receive in the form of legal tender collected by one's employee or agent"? Or can it only mean "have direct sensory knowledge of and physical contact with"?

That might actually depend on the contractual stipulations by which the cashier operates the register.