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DailyDirt: Pocketful Of Useless Coins

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Thu, Jun 21st 2012 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Some people hate carrying around coins and just save them up in jars or throw them into water fountains. There is a never-ending discussion over whether or not to stop printing the US penny, but some folks just don't like rounding to the nearest nickel. Some new coins have been extremely popular (eg. the US state quarters), and all sorts of organizations are starting to print new kinds of collectible coins. Here are just a few examples of some not-so-rare coins.

Military "challenge coins" are generally bestowed upon members of the armed forces for exemplary service and to boost morale. But other areas of the government have printed coins, too -- such as the secretaries of education, transportation and agriculture, as well as the Department of Agriculture's Office of Information Technology. If this coin tradition spreads, will there be inflation? [url]
The US mint has previously produced half-cent, two-cent, three-cent and 20-cent coins -- so why not an 18-cent coin or a 32-cent coin? The argument is that these additional coins would minimize coin transactions, but how about a 99-cent coin? [url]
The world's smallest coin could be a speck of diamond (about 750 nanometers across) with Elizabeth Windsor's profile etched on it. Nano-etching the lab-grown diamond demonstrates the capabilities of the James Watt Nanofabrication Centre at the University of Glasgow -- and similar processes could be used to produce patterns for novel semiconductors and nano-transistors. [url]

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Filed Under: coins, collectibles, diamond, money, nanofabrication, trinkets

14 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jun 2012 @ 5:16pm

heh... at first..
I was like "who is Elizabeth Windsor?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_II

Ahem.. yah, the Queen of England... DUH.
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Torg (profile), 21 Jun 2012 @ 5:54pm

I've come to view bills as coupons that let me get local goods for free. Coins are like bills, but my bank's ATMs won't exchange them for real money.
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Preposition Joe, 21 Jun 2012 @ 6:22pm

It's MINTING, not PRINTING
Coins are "minted", not "printed".

If you didn't know the right word you could have written "made" or "produced"...
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Michael Ho (profile), 21 Jun 2012 @ 6:25pm

Re:
I always wondered how Coinstar cornered the market on exchanging coins with machines that only accepted coins... ATMs are designed to be put a variety of locations, though, and Coinstar machines are usually only in big supermarkets.

Maybe when diamond manufacturing is cheaper, we'll all carry around diamond-based currency...
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jun 2012 @ 8:04pm

99 cent coins
Will make people mark the price as 98 cents... as the whole point of this convention is to make you have some unit of money back while give a unit of money away...

On the other hands, you may begin to see 0.99 or 1.99 soda on vending machines as they're designed best to work with exact charges. Now they would be able to take the 0.99 tactics...
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jun 2012 @ 8:50pm

Re: Re:
Physical money can see the Dodo's from where it stands.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jun 2012 @ 8:50pm

Re: 99 cent coins
I thought the point was that it made things sound cheaper. Like people subconsciously think $24.99 is much less than $25, even though there's really only a tiny difference.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Jun 2012 @ 12:17am

Re: It's MINTING, not PRINTING
I think struck would be appropriate too.
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hfbs (profile), 22 Jun 2012 @ 2:44am

Re: 99 cent coins
Relevant to discussion -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5UT04p5f7U
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Some Other Guy (profile), 22 Jun 2012 @ 5:43am

Re: Re: It's MINTING, not PRINTING
Or 'coined'
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Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 22 Jun 2012 @ 6:41am

Death to Pennies
Yeah, I'm one of those people who want to get rid of pennies.

It costs much more to produce pennies than they are worth (similar for nickels). This is low-hanging fruit if you want to cut government spending and waste.

As mentioned, the US Mint used to produce half-cent coins. When they stopped producing them, the buying power of the half-cent was considerably more than today's penny. Commerce didn't grind to a halt.

Australia and New Zealand have stopped producing them, saving millions. Canada is about to do so as well. Their economies aren't suffering as a result.

If you want to keep them, fine, we can disagree. But please just admit you want to keep them for sentimental reasons and not because they are somehow necessary to the economy.
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davebarnes (profile), 22 Jun 2012 @ 7:57am

18 and 32 cents are a bad idea
Bad because they are not prime numbers.
Take a lesson from JK Rowling. Now, there is a coinage expert.
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PlagueSD (profile), 22 Jun 2012 @ 8:33am

the 18 and 32 cent coins, while statistically more efficient for returning change per transaction, it'll be a LOT harder for people to do "fast" math resulting in it taking longer to get your change as the cashier attempts to count by 18's or 32's. Pennies, nickles, dimes and quarters make it easy to count to 100. They are nice round numbers that divide easily into 100. 18 and 32 don't.

Besides, there's already a problem with cashiers giving incorrect change. This will just compound the problem.
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weneedhelp (profile), 22 Jun 2012 @ 9:17am

Nano-etching the lab-grown diamond
Stealing diamonds now. Is there anything you damn pirates wont copy?
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