this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2024
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Today I Learned

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[–] derf82@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Ecuadorians are very touchy about the condition of their paper bills. I tried to pay for a Panama hat with some cash that included a slightly torn but fully in tact $10, and the shop owner refused. As such, more durable dollar coins, which were minted by the US but never really caught on, are quite popular.

Interestingly they do mint their own coins, with Ecuadorian half dollar, quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecuadorian_centavo_coins

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

I like the Sacagawea and "Innovation" dollar coins. The problem with 'em, though, is people horde and collect them so they're not as available as the regular paper bills even though they are currently still in production. They come across so rarely, I also tend to think "oooh I should hold onto this!" Whenever I get one back as change.

The only downside to using them I've run into is having to show the clerk it's a dollar and not a quarter.

[–] rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Humans love their shiny metal circles.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I'm pretty sure I remember reading a study that showed that handling coins actually makes the brain generate the good chemicals. So you're not wrong.

[–] BananaPeal@sh.itjust.works 1 points 8 months ago

The tooth fairy put one of these under my kid's pillow tonight. The thought is that he's going to enjoy it more because it's rare. It will end up in his piggy bank, out of circulation for who knows how long.

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 8 months ago

Wait, can’t yall just… go to the bank? I walked into a local bank a year or so ago and asked if I could exchange for them, they asked how many and just exchanged them like anything else.

I’m sure if I wanted thousands that would be a problem, but I’d be surprised if they didn’t have at least a handful.

[–] OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That actually makes a lot of cents.

[–] UmeU@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago (2 children)
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[–] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 4 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I gotta say I'm not used to seeing any dollars

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[–] Cuberoot@lemmynsfw.com 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

So that's where they all went. I haven't seen those in circulation since I bought stamps from a vending machine.

[–] JimVanDeventer@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago

Yep, there’s a pneumatic tube attached to that vending machine that goes all the way to Ecuador. Simple physics, really.

[–] PwnTra1n@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago (8 children)

These aren’t rare or unseen. All legal US money

[–] WolfLink@lemmy.ml 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

These aren’t rare in the sense that everybody has one they keep as a collectible. If I went down to 7/11 and tried to buy something with it they’d give me a funny look.

[–] PwnTra1n@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

no they wouldnt. its money. i work at a gas station we get these all the time

[–] Transporter_Room_3@startrek.website 4 points 8 months ago (4 children)

I have a friend who works at a bank, and when he was a teller there was a guy who would come in every friday and exchange 500 in dollar coins of varying types, the little brass colored ones here, the silver looking ones, and also 50 cent pieces.

They didn't carry that much at any time because nobody really brings them in so they had to start special ordering them for this one guy. Every week.

No idea what he uses them for, but either he's got a shitload of them, or he makes it hail at strip clubs.

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

No idea what he uses them for,

Let's say you want to buy a computer. You could, like a boring person, go to Best Buy and purchase a computer for 800 bucks on a credit card. Or you could dress up like a pirate with 800 gold doubloons in a sack, and slam that shit on the counter during checkout.

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[–] HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

50 cent coins contained silver for a few years longer than dimes and quarters. So you have a slightly better chance of finding a silver coin worth a few dollars in a roll of halves. It's free gambling for numismatists.

Source: I ask for the occasional roll of halves.

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[–] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

My guess is that he runs something that needs to give automated change. Vending machines, car washes, arcades, etc… Basically, if someone puts a $20 into the car wash but only wants a $10 wash, it’s easy to just dispense ten $1 coins as change.

Coin handlers are mechanically very easy. Coins don’t vary in size and shape, so it’s easy to automatically detect which coins have been inserted, dispense change, and reject coins that don’t match. Paper money sorters are much more complicated, and more prone to failure.

[–] TheOneAndOnly@lemm.ee 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Likely owns a vending machine business. They're easier to return than a handful of quarters if someone uses a 5 dollar bill to buy something for a buck and change.

[–] swab148@startrek.website 1 points 8 months ago

I'd put money on it being one of those "Twice the Ice" vending machines, all of my dollar coins come from either that or the ticket thing at the train station.

[–] BakerBagel@midwest.social 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The vending machine at my job gives change in dollar coins, and the Ohio turnpike does the same. They are fairly common, just people dont like to handle change is all.

[–] Spiralvortexisalie@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago

I recall in NYC for a while, dollar coins were known as metrocard change from when they first started installing the Metrocard Vending Machines.

[–] JimVanDeventer@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago (13 children)

Thank you; I didn’t know that. You do have a rather big country and I still sort of wonder if it is universally recognized. Again, just going by never having seen them in movies. Maybe United Statesians aren’t just fictional characters in movies. We’ll never know.

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[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I have a lot of those "gold" dollar coins. For a long time after they came out, I'd ask the cashiers at stores and banks to trade me paper dollars for whatever gold coins they had available. Many times I had to dig into my stash to get by, so it's not like I'm sitting on a massive horde of them or anything, but I have about a hundred of them.

[–] UmeU@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Well lookie who we have here… Mr Moneybags.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Yeah, me and my 100 $1 coins that I collected over ten years, sitting so pretty.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago (8 children)

We should've discontinued the dollar bill so that these coins would get used in the US, too.

[–] hightrix@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I disagree. I hate carrying any coins, while dollars of any denomination fit nicely in my wallet.

I have a hunch that if we were to swap to these instead of paper dollars for $1, prices would go up simply because retailers would you d everything up to the nearest $5 increment.

[–] bane_killgrind@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Canadian here, between electronic payments and coins being more durable than paper or polymer money, retailers don't have any incentive to charge a less competitive price.

[–] d00phy@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Awesome job on killing the penny up there! Wish we could do that in the US.

[–] Liz@midwest.social 2 points 8 months ago

We need to kill the nickel too.

[–] AscendantSquid@lemm.ee 1 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Isn't the wallet thing kinda backwards though? Like, it's not as if we all had wallets perfectly sized to carry this kind of paper money before the paper dollar was introduced.

I figure that if coins had been the predominant form of currency for at least the past century, we'd have a great way to carry coins other than a pouch, and paper money would be inconvenient.

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[–] JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca 3 points 8 months ago (3 children)

These are legal U.S. tender, minted in the U.S. Not common in the U.S. but still valid.

Pay attention to your other coins though. Ecuador does mint its own coins that match the American ones identically (1, 5, 10, 25 and 50 centavos) and also has some older 1 sucre coins that match these 1 dollar coins. Those would not be legal tender in the U.S., I'm pretty sure.

[–] JimVanDeventer@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago

I have these supposed $6 left over. If they turn out to be fake, I will shed a tear and move on. But thank you.

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[–] Resol@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago

At least it's not all green

[–] Wahots@pawb.social 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

There's a few countries that use US currency as the premium currency. Its very bizarre to be halfway around the world and see US dollars, but its a strong and reliable currency in countries where the local currency is too volitile to use.

[–] dutchkimble@lemy.lol 2 points 8 months ago

Yeah, like Cambodia. The ATMs near my hotel spat out dollars, but deep in the city it was local currency. Everyone accepted dollars but they did charge a bit higher if you were a dollar spender if you calculated the local currency conversion on that. From my country it was easier to get dollars too before I flew out, vs Riels which were harder to find and had a pretty bad exchange rate.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Sure, when you hand the cashier some US dollar coins, nobody bats an eye, but when I hand the cashier a stack of Australian $1 notes, everybody loses their minds!

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