I Forgot I Had This

[mbarrick]

I was just fixing up my "gypsy chest" and so was going through my jar of oddball coins. I forgot I had one these American loonies. The U.S. Mint webiste (click on "FAQ" and select "Golden Dollar") goes on at length about why the gold colour was used but it's pretty obvious: the Susan B. Anthony dollar was an utter flop, the loonie wasn't, so they copied us. And yet, the Sacagawea golden dollar is still a flop because they can't clue in to the one thing that really made the dollar coin a success here -- take away the dollar bill. Anyone in IT can tell you that as long as users can keep on doing things the "old way" 99% of them will, no matter much better the new way might be.

Comments

[bitogoth.livejournal.com]

i love dollar coins, but commerical vending companies refuse to adapt to them, so you can only use them as "live" cash or in state/federal machines, like buses or stamp machines. *shakes head*

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

And it isn't like they don't have the hardware. The things are just about exactly the same size as a loonie and all the vending machines, parking meters, fare-boxes, etc., here take them and virtually all the machines are made in the States to begin with.

A coin slot is a whole lot easier to maintain than a bill reader, too, and you don't get in that situation of trying every ratty old dollar bill in your wallet until you find one the machine takes.

But then there are the 50¢ coins here. No machines take them and they are difficult to come by. I like them, but it is hard to find a bank branch that will even order them. The first coin struck by the Royal Canadian Mint was a 50¢ piece, and my dad said they were everywhere when he was a kid in the 30's. For whatever reason they fell out of favour after the war.

[seymour-glass.livejournal.com]

yeh my dad had a bunch of 50 cent coins too...they are really rare, i remember how infrequently i would come across them in the years i worked at the gas station...and since cash registers have never adapted a drawer for them they just have never taken off...though it would make things much easier...

it's also funny the american treasury doesn't do that because coins obviously last much longer than bills...they are impossible to forge, though they can be imitated...and you'd think vending machine operators et al. would love the ease of coin operated machines and not bills...i like loonies and twonies now...

[seymour-glass.livejournal.com]

when i was going through an old box of knickknacks i came across a 1980 canadian dollar coin...i remember how rare those used to be too, you rarely ever saw them used before the loonie...it has the canoers on the front...i also found an alberta 75th anniversary silver coin that they gave all the school kids in 1980...

[bitogoth.livejournal.com]

the american 50-cent piece suffers the same fate. i think they were just too large to ever become convenient currency...

speaking of, there was a coin table at the stamp expo i went to last weekend. i didn't even go and look- stamp collecting is enough of a money-suck on its own! >_

coins ...

[thomasrymour.livejournal.com]

hmmm ... i actually preferred the smart chip the french use ... but nowadays, i don't. I have my reasons. But coins ... I have to say I prefer bills, don't weigh down your wallet, and easier to keep track of. I lose soo much money when I go to Canada and leave with a pocket full of change ... falls out of my pockets, onto my floor board or worse, the street ... and its not like I'm out 50 cents if that happens ... i'm out quite a few dollars.

But if they reinstitute the coin purse in fashion, then sure, why not. More weight to the waist.

The lack of bills suck for strippers in Canada however, as I've been told by my stripper friends it really sucks to strip in Canada because no one tips because throwing coins seem cheap, and no one in Canada seems to tip with the $5 bill.

[sovietnimrod.livejournal.com]

I love the old 50 cent coins. When my mom worked at CIBC when I was a kid, she'd ocassionally give me my allowance in rolls of 50 cent coins and I thoroughy enjoyed spending them and seeing all the strange faces and looks I got as a result.

Has anyone ever seen the Canadian pre-1936 1-cent and pre-1920 silver 5-cents coins? The 1-cents were slightly bigger than a quarter and the 5-cents were smaller than our dime. Newfoundland was still using (in their separate coinage) the silver 5-cent until they joined Confederation in 1949.

I think my most favourite Canadian coin is the 1871 Prince Edward Island penny http://www.georgemanzcoins.com/images/PEIMS66red.jpg I remember seeing it in a book as a kid and I hunted around at local coin stores for about two years before I was able to come across one.

[sovietnimrod.livejournal.com]

Originally the loonie was suppose to have the old silver dollar 'voyageur' design but during pre-production stage, the plates or dies for pressing the coins were inadvertantly stolen during a robbery - so the mint chose to go with a different design to prevent a mass of counterfeits (which would have been made from official dies).

[seymour-glass.livejournal.com]

i do remember the prince island one...it always made you think someone had given you something else in your change...my dad had some really old american silver dollars and some silver american dimes from the 1917 - 1920 era...

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

The "gypsy chest" I was working on has a number of the old pennies affixed to it. I used to have several of the old 5¢ coins when I was a kid, but I sold most of the silver out of my collection when I was a starving student.

Heh. When I worked for the Royal Bank in the late 80's I used to get rolls of the old silver dollars and 50¢ pieces all the time. I was the first person in Duncan to spend a loonie as well. Naturally the bank got them in advance of the official release date. The night before they became legal tender I spent a few at the pub.

The other side of the coin

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

The flip side of using coins for the lower denominations is the lovely way they accumulate in the change jar. It's not infrequent that we order pizza and pay for it with a small pile of twonies.

But with what a dollar is worth, even an American dollar, it's hardly worth having a bill. They are like the old "shinplaster" 25¢ bills Canada had circa WWI. They got nicknamed "shinplasters" because people would put them against their legs inside their boots to prevent the boot from raising a blister on the shin. This was better than regular paper because all Canadian banknotes have always been made from 100% cotton fibres (send a Canadian bill through the wash accidentally and it will fade and shrink!) so the bills would hold up.

For what the values are worth now it would make more sense to revalue the money by a factor of 5. The penny is dropped and a "new" penny has the value of an old nickel. A $5 bill becomes a $1 bill.

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

It's true. I've wanted to get my hands on one of the pre-release "test" coins with the voyageurs on it since the loonie came out.

And as a pointless aside - the most valuable modern coin is a particular Canadian silver dollar (there are some ancient coins worth more). Canada started minting silver dollars for circulation in 1935, but in 1911 the British Royal Mint (we didn't have a mint at the time) made *two* Canadian silver dollars. The Royal Mint held on to one and it is now in a museum in Ottawa (on loan from the Royal Mint). The other was displayed to parliament and "disappeared" for 50 years, turning up in 1960. Today it is worth more than a million dollars.

[sovietnimrod.livejournal.com]

Are these actually legal tender? I seem to recall reading something about the test-run issue in 1911 but I thought that these were only specimens (which don't equal being legal tender).

Hey, when you worked in the bank, did you ever come across any of those old, small 25-cent bills from the 1920s? My mom snagged one for me when one came through her branch - for face value of course.

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

No. They aren't legal tender.

I mentioned the 25¢ notes below (http://www.livejournal.com/users/mbarrick/525919.html#t1635167) in my reply to Leaf. I used to have a few in my collection when I was little, but never saw any at the bank.

The coin collection I had as a kid had an interesting start. My dad was an upholsterer and my coin collection - including things like big pennies, silver 5¢ coins and shinplasters - all came from pocket change lost in antique chesterfields and car back-seats.