Every so often you can stumble a crossed a machine or business (pretty much USPS) that hands out dollar coins as change, and you will most likely throw these into your pocket to “save” them like they are some form of rarity. Turns out you are one of the many reasons that the dollar coin isn’t taking off like it should. Here are some of my thoughts on why the dollar coin is failing at replacing the dollar:

• The wife went to a rural arts and crafts store and the cashier refused to accept dollar coins as payment, due to “This is America, and we don’t use your Saskatchewan-Canadian money here!”
• Retail businesses do not have a coin slot in their registers for this new coin, and therefore don’t request it in place of dollar bills when re-balancing the cash in the registers.
• Most Americans think they are some sort of rare coin that should be collected rather than an ordinary denomination of money. Heck, the US Mints paid people to buy them for a while and that didn’t even work!
• They are being adopted and used in other countries much better than in the US.

There are many more reasons why this ultimately good idea won’t work as planned, with the only solution to be not turning out competition… aka fresh new dollar bills. With the government operating as usual, you can expect to change from dollar bills to coins as a functional currency many years from now.

Do you prefer dollar coins or bills? Any specific benefits you can think of or do you just like to stick to the logical facts about longevity and cost to manufacture?