Streamlining US currency

Instead of the current denominations of
cent, nickle, dime, quarter, half-dollar...
$1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 bills...

What would be wrong with keep the nickle, quarter coins;
and adding a decent dollar coin and
keeping the $5, $20 and $100 dollar bills?

And also having multiple "faces" on these new denominations...
similar to what the Mint is doing with the Presidential $1 coins?

"studio" wrote in message
...
Instead of the current denominations of
cent, nickle, dime, quarter, half-dollar...
$1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 bills...

You forgot the $1 coin.....and it's "nickel" with no hyphen between half and
dollar, if you plan to send this to your congressman.


What would be wrong with keep the nickle, quarter coins;
and adding a decent dollar coin and
keeping the $5, $20 and $100 dollar bills?

It would just be wrong. Simply wrong. You forgot the dime, too. And the
cent and the half dollar. All among our traditional coins for over 200
years. And you want to change that? How old are you anyway? And what
would you suggest as a "decent" dollar coin?


And also having multiple "faces" on these new denominations...
similar to what the Mint is doing with the Presidential $1 coins?

Do you really think consumers look at the faces on their coins before
spending them?


Remember. Change is not always good.

On Fri, 22 Aug 2008 07:56:12 -0700 (PDT), studio
wrote:

Instead of the current denominations of
cent, nickle, dime, quarter, half-dollar...
$1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 bills...

What would be wrong with keep the nickle, quarter coins;
and adding a decent dollar coin and
keeping the $5, $20 and $100 dollar bills?

Any changes need to be done gradually. I vote for first getting rid of
the $1 bill and then the cent. Next to go, should be the nickel, since
the base metal value of two nickels is five times that of one dime.

WIthout the nickel, change could still be made for all .05 amounts
except those ending in .85 and .95. Some amounts would require four
dimes, so bringing back the twenty cent piece would reduce the amount
of dimes that need to be minted.

On Aug 22, 2:33*pm, Jon Purkey wrote:

Some amounts would require four dimes, so bringing back the twenty cent piece would reduce the amount of dimes that need to be minted.

This can't be said enough - Purkey, you're an idiot.

In article ,
studio wrote:
Instead of the current denominations of
cent, nickle, dime, quarter, half-dollar...
$1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 bills...

What would be wrong with keep the nickle, quarter coins;
and adding a decent dollar coin and
keeping the $5, $20 and $100 dollar bills?

I had the same thought--alternating multiples of 4 and 5. Has anyone
ever determined what the optimum interval between denominations is?

I know that for the related problem of carrying the smallest number of
"units" with you, the optimal solution is supposed to be the binary
system. For example, I once attended a car auction carrying bank checks
made out for $2000, $1000, $500, and another $500 in cash. The unused
checks could be taken back to the bank and voided. This approach minimizes
the number of items you have to carry in your pocket to pay any arbitrary
price up to some limit, but multiplies the number of denominations in
a rather silly fashion.

--
Please reply to: | President Bush is promoting Peace and Democracy
pciszek at panix dot com | in the Middle East by selling Weapons to the
Autoreply is disabled | King of Saudi Arabia.

In article
,
studio wrote:


And also having multiple "faces" on these new denominations...
similar to what the Mint is doing with the Presidential $1 coins?

There's a very strong bias against multiple designs on the same
denomination currency. It is true that way back in "the good old days"
(especially before the Federal Reserve began issuing notes) you'd have
all sorts of designs for the same denomination currency. This was
especially true when many individual banks were in the business of
issuing currency. But this gave rise to a lot of problems.

For many banks, they contracted their printing of money to a security
printer, like American Bank Note Company. These firms allowed their
customers to design their own currency; a banker could commission a
custom vignette for the note, but much more often the banker would
choose among a number of "standard" pictures or portraits that the
printing firm had available. Thus, quite a few banks used the same
portrait for, say, George Washington.

The problem begins in that not everyone used this same portrait for the
same denomination. Washington could be on the $1 issued by Bank A, a
$5 backed by Bank B, or a $10 or a $100 or whatever. Normally, this
would not be a problem, as most banknotes circulated only in the region
where the issuing banks were. But not always, especially around large
cities (where there could be multiple banks) or transportation hubs.

This gave rise to the practice of "raising" notes. Most banknotes are
similar in that they display their denominations in large numerals in
the corners of the note. A crook raising a note might take, say, a New
York-issued $1, some "10"s clipped off of other notes, & paste on the
larger numerals on the New York bill. He then goes off to a place like
Chicago & uses it at a shop or restaurant to pay for something. The
clerk is almost certainly not familiar with New York bills, & is used
to the fact that the design tells you little about the actual
denomination of the note; you have to read it. Most people, especially
in a busy retail establishment, & especially if they aren't too
literate, simply glance at the numerals on the corners of the note.
The crook walks off with effectively $9 in something he didn't pay for.

You'd think that the extra paper pasted onto the corners of the note
would be a giveaway, but enough people were fooled by this trick that
the authorities considered it a major problem. They pretty much fixed
it in the WWI era (by which time no one but the Federal government was
issuing notes) by standardizing the vignettes used on denominations.
From this point forward, for instance, Benjamin Franklin was the
featured portrait of the $100 denomination, regardless of whether it
was a Gold Certificate, Silver Certificate, United States Note,
National Bank Note, or Federal Reserve Note.

You could argue that these days, when the use of color is getting
widespread, & (thanks to still-unsettled litigation) different sizes
could be used for the different denominations, that they could
introduce the occasional special design, but there's doubtless a lot of
institutional inertia regarding this, & not everyone reacts favorably
to seeing an unfamiliar note tenderded as payment (just look at the
occasional story about folks being arrested for attempting to pay with
$2s, for instance).

barack obama on the new dollar coin


"Bruce Remick" wrote in message
...

"studio" wrote in message
...
Instead of the current denominations of
cent, nickle, dime, quarter, half-dollar...
$1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 bills...

You forgot the $1 coin.....and it's "nickel" with no hyphen between half
and dollar, if you plan to send this to your congressman.


What would be wrong with keep the nickle, quarter coins;
and adding a decent dollar coin and
keeping the $5, $20 and $100 dollar bills?

It would just be wrong. Simply wrong. You forgot the dime, too. And
the cent and the half dollar. All among our traditional coins for over
200 years. And you want to change that? How old are you anyway? And
what would you suggest as a "decent" dollar coin?


And also having multiple "faces" on these new denominations...
similar to what the Mint is doing with the Presidential $1 coins?

Do you really think consumers look at the faces on their coins before
spending them?


Remember. Change is not always good.

Does anybody know who Voltronicus is? Why is he hiding behind an assumed
name?

Tony


"Voltronicus" wrote in message
...
On Aug 22, 2:33 pm, Jon Purkey wrote:

Some amounts would require four dimes, so bringing back the twenty cent
piece would reduce the amount of dimes that need to be minted.

This can't be said enough - Purkey, you're an idiot.

jeff & vickie wrote:
barack obama on the new dollar coin

No, but how about on paper money instead of George Washington? A coin won't
get my ass as clean as paper money will, and with the economy the way it's
going FRN's will be cheaper than TP. It's a win-win.

A sad troll that has an IQ less than his shoe size, even if UK sizes are
used this still applies. Billy


"antoine gelat" wrote in message
. ..
Does anybody know who Voltronicus is? Why is he hiding behind an assumed
name?

Tony


"Voltronicus" wrote in message
...
On Aug 22, 2:33 pm, Jon Purkey wrote:

Some amounts would require four dimes, so bringing back the twenty cent
piece would reduce the amount of dimes that need to be minted.

This can't be said enough - Purkey, you're an idiot.