OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

“Shew (show) me a penny.  Whose image and superscription hath it?  They answered and said, Caesar’s.” (Luke 20:24)

My daughter got a lesson in the U.S. financial establishment’s doublespeak and inconsistencies this week.  Rachel really likes the new Presidential series one dollar coins.  (I kind of do, too!)  When the coins were introduced, like the Sacajewea coins of the early 2000s, there was much publicity about the importance of accepting and using the new coins and the public was urged to request the new coins at banks.

Rachel went to a local TDBanknorth branch and asked to have ten one dollar bills changed into ten Presidential dollar coins.  The teller informed Rachel that there were not ten one dollar coins available and that she might be able to get them at  “Store 24”.  (No kidding!)  Rachel ended up being given ten dollars worth of quarters!  She was not real happy, but not wanting to wear out her welcome at TDBanknorth, she walked out with the ten dollars worth of quarters!

The only place I’ve ever gotten the Presidential one dollar coins is as change at the stamp machine at the downtown Framingham post office.  This will not be available for long, though.  I’ve read that all of those old fashioned stamp machines which take dollar bills and coins will soon be replaced with machines which take only debit and credit cards!

Americans don’t use change.  Well most Americans don’t use change.  Rachel and I (and my son Jon) are among the few weirdoes who DO use change!  A couple of years ago, I learned that it is almost impossible to buy a change purse which is appropriate for a MAN to use!  Stores sell children’s change purses and they sell VERY effeminate women’s change purses.  Years ago, you COULD go out and buy a man’s change purse, but I hadn’t bought one in over ten years and my how things had changed.  I ended up buying a modest but kind of cool small zippered change purse which has a green smiling cartoon frog on it!  It doesn’t look feminine.  (All other such change purses were pink and totally girly!)    It looks like a change purse an older teen or maybe a college age young adult might use.  I call it “frogman” and I’m taking good care of it because I’m sure I’ll never find another change purse suitable for a male.  Now, Canadians use change!  Canada got rid of all bills smaller than $5 in value a number of years ago.  The Canadian dollar is a bronze colored coin, about the size of a Kennedy half dollar which has an inscription of a loon and therefore is called the “loonie”.  There is also a really fancy silver-ish and bronze-ish two dollar coin in Canada called the “2-nie”.  When I’ve changed U.S. cash to Canadian when I’ve traveled there, I’ve found that most people routinely use the one dollar and two dollar coins and it’s no big deal.  They’re great for vending machines and suitable to leave tips in family type restaurants, etc.

The American dollar coin would be accepted if all the traditional George Washington dollar bills were taken out of circulation, but I think the Federal Reserve is very reluctant to do that.  That George Washington dollar bill is a tradition Americans don’t want to part with.  Still, when they wonder why the new dollar coin, like all previous ones, is failing and not being accepted by the public, they need only look at major American banks which will not stock them for distribution and at the post office which is phasing out the machines that dispense those coins.

I know most people prefer debit cards, credit cards and checks to coins.  Well, I do have a debit card, a credit card, and a checking account, but I’m also kind of like a guy who was once on Jeopardy who told Alex Trebek he tries to always pay with exact change or as close to it as possible.  I think Alex thought the guy was kind of nuts.  I guess Alex would think the same thing about me because I do exactly the same thing!

There’s no doubt where Rachel and her brother Jon get their preference for cash (and even coins) from.  However, Rachel has decided it’s pointless to go to banks and ask for Presidential dollar coins!