On Jul 6, 6:58*pm, Flame wrote:
Paul Anderson wrote in newsaulranderson-
:

The Manchester Union Leader had a front-page, above-the-fold story
yesterday about a merchant in Colebrook NH who uses half-dollars and $2
bills as "normal money" at his store.

http://www.unionleader.com/article.a...+merchant+make
s+his+money+work+for+him&articleId=c6b01735-f0cc-48ab-89e4-954bf713b0ac

Paul

The US should look at the route Canada took. We abandoned the $1 bill in
favor of a $1 coin in the 70's and saved millions in printing costs as the
coins last decades longer. We did the same to our $2 bill in the 80's.

I am a bill collector and miss new issues of both denominations but I can't
ignore the savings to the government by making this change.

Also, as the US has proved a couple of times, you can not make a $1 coin be
accepted unless you withdraw the paper equivalent at the same time.

As for 50 cent coins - they exist up here but are just as rare in
circulation.

Flame

50 cent coins will never circulate because they do not work in vending
machines. Everyday vending machines cannot accommodate such a huge
coin. They already accommodate the small dollar coin. The vending
mechanisms are identical for the USA and Canada and there are internal
switches to set programming ("USA Only" or "USA/CAN"). An internal
switch cannot magically make the internal tubes and coin pathways
larger to accommodate the half dollar coin.

Twos can circulate and have slowly increased in circulation (mainly
because of the Web, not USENET whic virtually everyone has
abandonded). Halves will never increase in circulation. And dollar
coins are already in use and circulating. In the USA they have not
"replaced" the rag dollar, but they are used in a variety of
applications including vending machines for parking lots, mass
transit, snacks, coin-op laundry, coin-op pool tables, etc. and some
folks actually use them as gasp "money" when buying stuff at stores
and restaurants.

Canada and Euroland knew what to do: eliminate the unit paper
denomination and use the coin.

Savings are not just in pringint cost, but also in seignorage profit
vs. the cost of borrowing to issue a Federal Reserve Note. Seignorage
for a huge half dollar coin is not worth it, especially when consumers
will be unable to use them in any vending machine. There is one
business that would *LOVE* a flood of halves into consumers pockets:
COINSTAR. They will reap huge profits when consumers dump their halves
into the machines and pay the 9-point-whatever percent fees.