Death to Pennies???

[Kulindahr]

It would be easier to just switch to a new currency where everything is worth twenty times what the old one was. The new penny would be worth two present dimes.

 

[gsdx]

I'm glad he mentioned the biggest argument against dumping the penny. I've read about so many people who think all prices will be rounded up to the nearest nickel:

$1.43 -> $1.45
$6.27 -> $6.30
$189.99 -> $200.00

They won't. Pennies will still be included in the price: $1.43, $6.27, $189.99, etc.

It's only the final tally which will be rounded up or down to the nearest nickel: $1.43 + $6.27 + $189.99 = $197.69 -> $197.70

 

[chrisw87]

Meh, been without 1c and 2c coins in Australia for a long time. Nostalgia perhaps in keeping it around but that is really it.

 

[bankside]

If a main unit of currency is divided into 100 parts, I want a coin for that hundredth part. However I don't think we need to divide a dollar into 100 parts.

I would accept a dollar divided into 10 parts instead, which would work out to about the value of an old Austrian schilling, before the €.

So instead of dollars and cents, you could have dollars and schillings.

 

[frankfrank]

I've read about so many people who think all prices will be rounded up to the nearest nickel

$189.99 -> $200.00

Wow that's a hefty round-up. LOL

As for the other post mentioning the new pennies being worth 20 times as much as the old instead, what happens to the old pennies? Vending machines wouldn't be able to tell the difference, or they would have to be entirely retrofitted (and pennies would need to be made of a material with different size and/or mass characteristics, and possibly be made magnetic).

 

[gsdx]

Wow that's a hefty round-up. LOL

Damn that 20-minute edit feature!!

 

[Kulindahr]

I'm glad he mentioned the biggest argument against dumping the penny. I've read about so many people who think all prices will be rounded up to the nearest nickel:


They won't. Pennies will still be included in the price: $1.43, $6.27, $189.99, etc.

It's only the final tally which will be rounded up or down to the nearest nickel: $1.43 + $6.27 + $189.99 = $197.69 -> $197.70

That's a good point. I once order a massive amount of PVC pipe for my conservation project, and on the invoice it showed a price with a third digit after the decimal point. That's when I learned that a lot of products out there are actually priced in fractions of a penny, even though we don't have a tenth-penny coin.

Doing away with the penny would allow doing away with something else that's a crappy investment: the dollar bill. The US has a dollar coin that is incredibly more cost-effective than a piece of paper, however high-tech the composition of that paper may be. Eliminate the penny, move all the coins over a lost in the cash register, and viola! space for the dollar coin.

 

[Kulindahr]

Wow that's a hefty round-up. LOL

As for the other post mentioning the new pennies being worth 20 times as much as the old instead, what happens to the old pennies? Vending machines wouldn't be able to tell the difference, or they would have to be entirely retrofitted (and pennies would need to be made of a material with different size and/or mass characteristics, and possibly be made magnetic).

The vending machine lobby swarms Congress every time anyone so much as mentions changing the currency. For doing away with the penney, they don't care; no machines take those any more. They wouldn't even care if the nickel vanished; machines that take nickels also take dimes.

The way to do scaling for a new array of coins would be to match the overlapping sizes and values, e.g. the new penny would be the size and rough mass of a current dime, or whatever.

 

[fetaby]

Wow that's a hefty round-up. LOL

As for the other post mentioning the new pennies being worth 20 times as much as the old instead, what happens to the old pennies? Vending machines wouldn't be able to tell the difference, or they would have to be entirely retrofitted (and pennies would need to be made of a material with different size and/or mass characteristics, and possibly be made magnetic).

http://www.parkpennies.com/penny/penny.htm

If you have $1.45 worth of pennies (pre-1982) You have approx. $3.50 worth of copper...

http://www.metalprices.com/FreeSite/metals/cu/cu.asp

 

[chrisw87]

If a main unit of currency is divided into 100 parts, I want a coin for that hundredth part. However I don't think we need to divide a dollar into 100 parts.

I would accept a dollar divided into 10 parts instead, which would work out to about the value of an old Austrian schilling, before the €.

So instead of dollars and cents, you could have dollars and schillings.

That would be more logical, even here in Australia, nobody has or really uses 5c pieces anymore. I usually collect a huge amount of 10c pieces from change in my work bag, then when I run out of money, collect them all to buy something and piss off store attendants.

Usually I collect all of my small denominations though and eventually take them into the sorting machine at my bank to turn them into "real" money.

 

[Kulindahr]

That would be more logical, even here in Australia, nobody has or really uses 5c pieces anymore. I usually collect a huge amount of 10c pieces from change in my work bag, then when I run out of money, collect them all to buy something and piss off store attendants.

Usually I collect all of my small denominations though and eventually take them into the sorting machine at my bank to turn them into "real" money.

Seems the only people who actually like the small change are people who make machines to count them.

I even asked at the bank today, to see what the teller would think. She loved the idea of getting rid of pennies and the paper dollar.

 

[looseliam]

One can still use pennies at tool booths in Illinois. It gets me out of paying tolls sometimes. I begin to count-out 80 to 100 pennies. I usually get to around 10 before the attendant just lets me go.

I, for one, would welcome the elimination of pennies as well as the dollar bill replaced by a coin. Though, a dollar coin a bit smaller that what's out now.

As for melting-down pennies, I don't know one scrap shop or coin shop that won't give you $ for the bullion weight of them - legal or not.

That's a good point. I once order a massive amount of PVC pipe for my conservation project, and on the invoice it showed a price with a third digit after the decimal point. That's when I learned that a lot of products out there are actually priced in fractions of a penny, even though we don't have a tenth-penny coin.
<snip>

Just like gas. I think it's a way for the price to appear cheaper. $3.999 looks better than $4.00 even though, to me, they're the same when it comes to gas.

 

[maxpowr9]

I've had this conversation here before and had to put someone on ignore (the first in my JUB career) because they sent me nasty PMs on it. Americans are too arrogant to switch a better system of currency. I am personally all for dumping the penny on the cost alone and paper currency for something more modern. I doubt it will ever happen in my lifetime but who knows.

 

[Kulindahr]

As for melting-down pennies, I don't know one scrap shop or coin shop that won't give you $ for the bullion weight of them - legal or not.

I met a plumber who does a lot of copper pipe work. He also is a coin collector, and goes through massive numbers of pennies looking for old ones. Frequently he doesn't feel like returning all the extra pennies to the bank, so all the pre-'82 ones get tossed in the tank with pipe scrap, and he melts it all into ingots that he sells.

And one of the scrap places here doesn't even blink at the sight of a few dollars worth of pennies in a bin of copper.

 

[Aaron]

I'm glad he mentioned the biggest argument against dumping the penny. I've read about so many people who think all prices will be rounded up to the nearest nickel:

$1.43 -> $1.45
$6.27 -> $6.30
$189.99 -> $200.00

They won't. Pennies will still be included in the price: $1.43, $6.27, $189.99, etc.

It's only the final tally which will be rounded up or down to the nearest nickel: $1.43 + $6.27 + $189.99 = $197.69 -> $197.70

There was a bill before the House to dump the penny before the last election (and it obviously died on the order paper). I'm with you, though: "everything will cost more" frustrates me to no end. You pay cash, it's rounded; you pay credit or debit, it's not. Seems like a pretty easy concept to me. Are you and I the only ones in Canada who get it?!

(If I remember correctly, there was a story on CTV recently that some businesses in Ontario have tried to stop taking pennies.)

 

[frankfrank]

Eliminate the penny, move all the coins over a lost in the cash register, and viola! space for the dollar coin.

Then you'd have to figure out a way to discourage people from hoarding the damn things. (And, if there were still to be any paper currency below $5, let it be a $2 bill.)

 

[Kulindahr]

Then you'd have to figure out a way to discourage people from hoarding the damn things. (And, if there were still to be any paper currency below $5, let it be a $2 bill.)

Hoarding what -- pennies? They'd be worthless as anything but metal.

And yes, the $2 goes in the vacated $1 slot in the till.

 

[fetaby]

Hoarding what -- pennies? They'd be worthless as anything but metal.

And yes, the $2 goes in the vacated $1 slot in the till.

I believe he meant hoarding the dollar coins. I think they are still seen as too much of a novelty and therefore "collectible".

 

[Kulindahr]

I believe he meant hoarding the dollar coins. I think they are still seen as too much of a novelty and therefore "collectible".

Hm. I think if they were the only single-dollar item available, they'd get used.

 

[frankfrank]

I believe he meant hoarding the dollar coins. I think they are still seen as too much of a novelty and therefore "collectible".

Yuppers, that's what I meant. I should've been more specific with my antecedents. My bad...