August 10, 2010 11:50am by Steve | 
More than 1 billion coins sit in storage
The U.S. Mint claims that the American public is resistant to dollar coins and refuses to use them. While in general I understand that comment, from a practical perspective I’m not resistant at all. I just never get them as change. What am I supposed to do? Go to the bank and buy rolls of dollar coins to “do my part”?
If we got them as change we probably wouldn’t have any problem using them. I do understand, however, that both the customer and the merchant are reluctant to use the coins. The merchant probably thinks that the customer will complain about receiving them, and the customer is worried that the merchant will reject the coin.
The U.S. Mint claims that they have “tried everything”. Not really. How about mailing 3 coins currently in storage to every U.S. citizen? That should get nearly 1 billion of them into circulation quickly!
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I could be wrong, but I thought when the push to use them came up (again) in the mid 90′s the biggest problem was that vending machine makers wouldn’t support them. Whatever about messing with peoples money – don’t stop them from getting their soda for breakfast!
That may be all fixed by now (I’m sure you’ll research heavily). Personally – I hate change! I get rid of coins every night. But that’s just me.
Good point with the vending machines. Hah.
The whole point of moving to dollar coins is that it would save the country money because metal lasts longer than paper. While true, the relatively small savings it would produce seems like a poor reason to go through all the trouble trying to change something that the country at large feels is already perfectly fine.
I just returned from vacation in Switzerland. They have lots of coins (francs). They have a 5 cent, 10 cent, 20 cent, 1/2 franc, 1 franc, 2 franc, and 5 franc coins. Then they start with the paper and all the paper bills are different sizes and colors. I liked it as it was easy to know what you had once I got used the coin sizes. I used coins a lot while there. $1US coins seem to be good idea to me.