I remember when the susan b anthony coins came out and everyone msitook them for quarters and they were getting stuck in vending machines. I use my debit card for most things so I don't have to carry and handle a lot of money (though I doo keep a stash for emergencies).

Yeah the whole Susan B Anthony thing was a fiasco. I still remember the arguments I got into when some clueless clerk kept telling me I gave her a quarter and not a dollar. At least this time the dollar coins are gold in color, larger and thicker than a quarter. Now if the vending machines will just take them! Maybe we can work on getting rid of the penny next.

I love dollar coins, 50 cent pieces, and $2 bills. I always have a ton of fun spending them. You would be suprised how many people have no idea what they are and refuse to take them. It always makes me chuckle a bit. These new dollar coins should be fun since no one knows about them yet. <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Actually, OBG, you've hit on one of the reasons given for why the US Mint keeps trying to popularize a $1 coin--inflation. Instead of the long gone days of being able to use a $1 coin and getting change back, as you mentioned, the reason is sort of the flip side. Now that items in vending machines routinely cost more than $1 and since the machines accept paper currency, the need for returning $3+ in change to consumers is a headache for both the consumer and the people who maintain the vending machines with enough change. Much easier if the machine can return a single $1 coin versus 4 quarters.

Anyway, not the only reason, but one of the reasons for another $1 coin.

Another reason that I read for the ambivalence towards a $1 coin is that merchants don't have any place for it in their cash register drawers. It depends on the business, of course, but for many/most places, simply squeezing another slot into the cash register drawer is impractical because each slot gets much smaller and won't hold enough coins. So one argument I read for helping win over merchants was to get rid of the penny to make room for $1 coins. Sounds rather radical, but it's an interesting angle to the continuing saga of the $1 coin.

Of course, we could be the like computer or electronics industry and just force people to buy newer, wider cash registers with an extra $1 coin slot and stop making the current ones! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Good point! I think the days of the penny are definitely numbered. I read somewhere recently that due to the increase in the price of copper and other metals that it now cost the US Mint more to mint the penny than it is even worth.

Name one single time the Decision Makers made a good decision? Just one will do...

Sue

I have read that the new $1 coins will have the same "signature" as the Sacagawea coins, so any vending machine that accepts the Sacagawea coins should accept the new coins without modification. So, you could put in a $5 bill and get both Sacagawea and George Washington $1 coins back in change now.

And the Sacagawea coins have the same electromagnetic signature as the previous Susan B. Anthony dollar coin, so vending machines have been unaffected for quite a while.

From http://www.usmint.gov/kids/coinNews/circulating/dollarCoin.cfm
The Golden Dollar shows Sacagawea, the young Shoshone woman who traveled with and helped Lewis and Clark to explore the Louisiana Territory. The golden color is not gold, but a mixture of metals, specially chosen to not only look golden to human eyes, but to look the same as the Susan B. Anthony dollar to vending machines. The new dollar has the same "electromagnetic signature" as the old one. That means the makers of the machines don't have to change the machines so they can "see" the new dollar.

The other day I saw or read, can't remember which, that paper money carries all sorts of nasties on it including bacteria, traces of drugs, viruses and even plain old dirt.

Next time you pull a dollar out of your pocket think about where its been and whether or not you should be wearing a hazmat suit just to handle it.

I also read that coins don't "hold on to" bacteria and viruses like paper money but that may something someone just made up.

porkchop