On 28/12/2011 01:20, Miles Bader wrote:
John writes:
the value of a penny then is about a dime now.

Is the value in the material or the labor/etc for making them?


I think that it is indeed the labour.


If the former, and they don't want to get rid of pennies, maybe they
could make a new money using cheaper material.


Would require an act of congress, most likely.


Japanese yen coins are made of aluminum, which is about 1/3 the cost
of copper per unit weight, and 1/4 the weight per unit volume, so
you'd get a factor of 12 drop in material cost per coin -- and then
you could even make the coin smaller!

I don't know the somewhat softer metal would have any significant
effect on durability in normal use, but I haven't noticed any obvious
difference from other Japanese coins in terms of wear or average age.

[I like these small aluminum coins because they're very easy on the
pockets and very easy to identify by touch.]


They also had them in Italy and East Germany, when they respectively had
the lira and mark. I think that I even have a 50-pfennig and 1-mark
piece somewhere.

" wrote:
On 28/12/2011 01:20, Miles Bader wrote:
I don't know the somewhat softer metal would have any significant
effect on durability in normal use, but I haven't noticed any
obvious
difference from other Japanese coins in terms of wear or average
age.

[I like these small aluminum coins because they're very easy on
the
pockets and very easy to identify by touch.]


They also had them in Italy and East Germany, when they
respectively had
the lira and mark. I think that I even have a 50-pfennig and 1-mark
piece somewhere.


Apparently several Euro zone countries - including Germany - have now
completed the printing of sufficient banknotes in their own
currencies to be able to cope when/if the Euro fails.

I wonder if they have also minted coins?

In " writes:

pennies?

No, but I know that the vending machines at US post offices do take them.

Except that.. just about all US Post Offices have eliminated the
coin and bill vending machines in favor of the credit/debit card
only.. Automated Postal Machines. (I think that's their name; might
be misremembering).



--
__________________________________________________ ___
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key

[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

On Dec 27, 5:09*pm, Bolwerk wrote:

SEPTA, unlike NYC, accepts dollar bills on its buses. *I don't know
why NYC's fareboxes aren't set up to handle that.

Because it's time consuming and a pain in the ass. *Dropping change in
is easy and you can use dollar coins - though I suppose the downside to
dollar coins is about the only place I can readily find them is in
transit vending machines.

You answered your own post. Dollar coins are not easy to find.
Further, many independent merchants dislike them because they're too
easily confused with quarters. Chain store clerks gotta take them,
but sometimes they think you gave them a quarter.

Supposedly dollar coins are easy for vision-impaired to tell apart,
but the men who service our vending machines absolutely despise them,
so as a courtesy I don't use them in our machines.


Just read the mint cancelled production of more dollar coins since the
warehouses are jammed.

On Dec 27, 5:20*pm, Jarle H Knudsen wrote:

I'm amazed you still use one dollar bills. Why haven't they been phased
out?

Because people really like them and don't want to get rid of them.

The govt has been making dollar coins for you in hopes that they'll
replace the dollar bill, but few want them.

On Dec 27, 6:12*pm, Robert Neville wrote:

Paper notes are still far more convenient to carry than coins and the US has far
more vending machines and cash register drawers than most other countries.. While
many will accept dollar coins, the ones that do tend to be government owned (ie
Post Office) or located in casinos. The far more ubiqutous soda and candy
vending machines tend to take nickels, dime and quarters, and if you are really
lucky, the have a working receiver for $1 bills. Replacing all those won't be
cheap and the cost would fall on the machine owner while the benefit went to the
government.

Originally the vending machine industry wanted dollar coins. But they
were able to come up with a dollar bill reader, and almost all vending
machines have one now, and now they almost always work fine.

One machine that could've been modified to take dollar coins is the
pay phone. But pay phones are rapdily disappearing, and many don't
even take coins for long distance calls, only local calls. (Many in
NYC do take coins for long distance, about 25c/ minute, $1 minimum).

On Tue, 27 Dec 2011 15:52:18 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels"
wrote:

p.s. By random luck, I got a ¥100 paper note in a store a while back:
a customer was trying to use it, and the store wouldn't take it
(though they're technically still legal tender), so I bought off her
for a ¥100 coin... :]

I did that with a $2 bill once in eastern Ohio at a gas station
convenience store.

When I was in college (1953) I got a strange dollar bill in change
once. It looked alright on one side but the other one looked like
Monopoly money. I took it to the school's cashier who gladly
exchanged it for a "regular" dollar bill. Many years later I realized
that it was a WW-II special series issued to Hawaiian residents and
service personnel which had some collector value.

I personally do not deal in cash - paper or metal - any more to any
great extent. Except for my monthly haircut (barber is not set up for
anything but cash) and the tips and gratuities that I give to AMTRAK
sleeping and dining car attendants, everything else is via plastic or
prepaid paper tickets purchased with plastic.
--

Phil Kane - Beaverton, OR
PNW Beburg MP 28.0 - OE District

the value of a penny then is about a dime now.

Is the value in the material or the labor/etc for making them?

No, no. What you could buy for 1c in 1948 costs 10c now.

If the former, and they don't want to get rid of pennies, maybe they
could make a new money using cheaper material.

They already did that in 1982, making pennies mostly out of zinc
rather than the more expensive copper. But even so, they now cost 2c
to make.

R's,
John

On Wed, 28 Dec 2011 10:20:50 +0900, Miles Bader wrote:

Japanese yen coins are made of aluminum, which is about 1/3 the cost
of copper per unit weight, and 1/4 the weight per unit volume, so
you'd get a factor of 12 drop in material cost per coin -- and then
you could even make the coin smaller!

The before-1980-inflation Israeli equivalent to a one-cent piece was
about a centimeter in diameter, made of aluminium with large scalloped
edges - very easy to identify. (Un)fortunately, they are all out of
current circulation because they don't buy anything in today's
economy.
--

Phil Kane - Beaverton, OR
PNW Beburg MP 28.0 - OE District

You answered your own post. Dollar coins are not easy to find.
Further, many independent merchants dislike them because they're too
easily confused with quarters. Chain store clerks gotta take them,
but sometimes they think you gave them a quarter.

I realize that chain store clerks are often not too bright, but they
must be totally brain-dead if they can't tell a yellow smooth-edged
dollar from a white notch-edged quarter.

R's,
John