We knew they were coming, but now the new $1 coins are entering circulation. I guess the Mint figures that it was the sex of the person depicted that kept the Susan B and Sacagewea coins from being accepted. It isn’t meant to take the place of the dollar bill, we are told.
The United States Mint today released into circulation the new George Washington $1 Coin, the first in a series of $1 coins honoring former United States Presidents.
The George Washington $1 Coins are legal tender and can be used for commerce and collecting. All Presidential $1 Coins are designed to work in most coin machines, including parking meters and vending machines.
Modeled after the United States Mint’s successful 50 State Quarters® Program, the Presidential $1 Coin Program will feature systematically rotating designs of former United States Presidents. The George Washington $1 Coin marks the first of four Presidential $1 Coins to be released this year, with John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to roll out later in 2007.
Was it really the fact that earlier dollar coins had women on them that kept them from being accepted by the public?
As far as I’m concerned dollar coins are heavier and don’t fit in your wallet, and even worse, not all vending machines accept them. While a dollar can be used practically everywhere.
I love dollar coins. The expression on the clerks face when I pay for stuff is priceless. Some kid was doing the same thing with the 2 dollar bill also. But yes it does suck that not all vending machines accept the coin.
Coins are a pain in the ass. I am sure I am not the only one that tosses all the coins I receive during the day into a container so that I can eventually turn those coins in to real paper money.
2. “Some kid was doing the same thing with the 2 dollar bill also.”
Just don’t spend those 2 dollar bills at Best Buy.
I hate coins and I hate paper money.
I use my credit card on everything. If I can’t use my card on it, I don’t buy it.
5. “I use my credit card on everything. ”
God, I wish my hookers took credit cards. I always forget to stop and get money. I end up being beat by the pimp for not having any money. One of these days my wife is going to wonder where these bruises come from. Well, as least the ones she didn’t inflict herself.
Is that a roll of dollars in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
Some kid was doing the same thing with the 2 dollar bill also
Woz is famous for this.
This is just another coin collecting scam. Every state quarter that was collected and pulled out of circulation is free money for the U.S. Mint. Seeing a money making opportunity four times as lucrative, now they are going to be selling dollar coins that most will be collected and pulled out of circulation. I suppose if this puts a dent in the $8 trillion dollar U.S. debt, it’s a start. And I suppose if anything helps our academically challenged kids learn a little about U.S. history, that’s a good thing too. The one thing these coins won’t be is valuable. So many of these coins will be put in circulation that a hundred years from now their collectable worth will still be a dollar. That is until inflation eats away at their value to the point where they’ll only buy a penny’s worth of goods in the 22nd century.
9. “Every state quarter that was collected and pulled out of circulation is free money for the U.S. Mint.”
Yep, it’s the same reason why the post office sells collector stamps. They neither want nor expect them to be used.
Are these made of that precious metal ***aluminum***
dollar coins are worth nothing more than to be a collectible. I wouldn’t carry more than 5 of them at any one them. 30 dollars worth of singles will take a bit longer to count out to pay for something, 30 dollars of coins is a pain.
beside, how in the world can I tip for a lap dance with dollar coins?
The real reason we didn’t use them before was profiles. We want our dollars to show a full frontal face, not a profile.
Hey Canadians….How are those loonies and twonies working out?
This probably won’t work. It has nothing to do with the sex of the person on the coin; it has to do with people’s familiarity with bills. The coins will be seen as novelties, and grandparents will give them to grandkids as keepsakes. The only way to force their use is to make like Canada and remove the 1-dollar bills from circulation, but since these coins aren’t “meant to take the place of the dollar bill,” that’s not going to happen.
The EU has 1- and 2-Euro coins.
The loonies are fine, they keep getting re-elected.
…
Oh, you mean the COINS! They’re ok. Money is money. I never keep enough of them around to worry about how much they weiigh.
Well, as a Canadian, I can say after years of this it sucks.
My wallet is 4 inches thick and all I have on me is $10.
Men will have to start carrying purses, and we jingle every where we go.
Is this not a step back soon we will have to carry a bag of dab loons every where we go. Time to get rid of Cash and get a secure debit system, then all monetary transaction can be tracked, all of those dead beats working under the table or pay cash no tax and not paying there fair share of the Tax load will have to pony up. My tax bill could go down 40% or the government could through more parties for themselves.
Familiarity and convenience of bills accounts for most of the aversion to coins I feel. I hate change, I dump it into jars the moment I get it and cash it in once a year. Perhaps if you could actually buy something with the coins it would be different. I’ve been to Europe a few times over the past decade and I fondly remember having a small change purse in countries like France where a few coins could get my morning baguette or even a decent lunch. Keeping enough U.S. change in your pockets to buy lunch makes you look ridiculous.
I guess I’m odd man out here. I’m Canadian, and as you know, they issued dollar coins about twenty years ago in Canada, and withdrew the paper bills. Now there are two-dollar coins as well. I like the coins…I reach into my pocket and there’s three or four dollars there. I pay small things by coin, and don’t often open my wallet. When I travel in the US I always end up with a big wad of limp dollar bills (and since the US currency is all more or less the same colour, this causes some confusion). I never accept pennies, and this keeps the load lighter. After years of inflation, the dollar is the new quarter anyway…might as well be a metal one.
Give the dollar coins a try…you might end up liking them. Of course, if the US keeps on printing paper dollar bills, the experiment might fail, cuz people don’t like to change.
Just my 2 cents….
The original Susan B. Anthony $1 coin wasn’t accepted because it was virtually the same size as the quarter. This is such an obvious design flaw that even our government wouldn’t screw up that bad. So I believe that it was done on purpose with the knowledge that this would cause its failure. I really don’t have a good idea why they would have wanted it to fail.
Another reason the Susan B and Sacagewea coins weren’t successful is that they were too close in size to the quarter. The mint doesn’t learn. The new presidential dollar coins will be the same size as the previous dollar coins. They should make it much bigger than the quarter but less than the half-dollar.
The Canadian coin is bigger than the quarter, gold in colour, and eleven-sided rather than round. Impossible to confuse it. It wasn’t a big deal to change the coin machines. It’s called the “loonie,” not because (or only because) we are nuts, but because it has a loon on the front. The original version had a Mounted Policeman, but the plates were sent to the Mint via Canada Post and were lost or stolen, and this was the substitute. The two-dollar coin (the tooney) is bigger, and is two-coloured–silver, with a round gold insert in the middle. Again, impossible to confuse. Two toonies and two loonies make six bucks in your pocket for only four coins.
Obviously, they have to stop making $1 bills or these coins will never take off. This situation is no different than when the Sacagewea coin came out (these are the same size and color, in fact). I don’t remember the exact amount, but it’s millions of dollars that can be saved each year from making coins that last 30 years versus printing the dollar bills that only last 18 months (on average).
Unfortunately these coins are necessary in some venues. Go to any large amateur pool tournament being played on bar boxes and you will likely find tables needing these things. Worse yet, if it’s a 1.50 table you will need 1 dollar and two quarters per rack. What a pain.
I have always been a huge fan of the dollar coin. One of the main reasons it has never taken off is the US Mint doesn’t create enough buzz about it. All I ever hear is how they are “so easily confused with the quarter”. I hate paper $1. I would imagine the government would save a lot of money in the long term if they pulled paper $1 out of circulation and created the one and two dollar coin.
Here is a better solution to the ones talking about having too much change in their pockets, get rid of pennies, nickels, and quarters. Force the merchants to round their prices (sales tax included) to the nearest dime. You would have a dime, 1/2 dollar, $1 and $2 coins.
The strippers will be just fine.
Certain coins and paper denominations have fallen out of favor. When I was a kid, half dollars were common (a 50 cent piece got you a meal at Burger Chef in the 60s, for instance), though they’re not now.
Cash registers no longer have enough bins for all the minted coins, so dollar coins and 50 cent coins go under the cash drawer with $2, $50 and $100 dollar bills, and aren’t handed out in change. The only vending machines I’m aware of that take the current “silver dollars” (and hand them out in change) are US Postal Service stamp machines.
“Easily confused with a quarter” is not a fiction. I have reached into my pocket for change and realized later I handed a waitress or a store clerk a couple of dollars instead of a couple of quarters. If they’re not easy to tell apart by feel, the way the old fifty-cent pieces and “cartwheel” silver dollars were, they’re not practical as coins of the realm. The mint knows this perfectly well.
There’s already Neocon disinformation about the dollar coin not having “in Allah.. er God We Trust” link
J/P=?
I am SO glad about Snopes.com!
#27 has it correct – when purchasing stamps from postoffice, you get change in dollar coins – which are hard to exchange anywhere – I foist em off on fast food places.
#8 Steve Wozniak is indeed famous for his $2 bill antics. He gets them in sheets and often cuts them out in front of people with scissors to pay them. He also has them perforated and made into books so he can tear off a few bills to pay people.
http://www.woz.org/letters/general/78.html