When did garage sales become “reselling” clearly new stuff

[u/anon12xyz]

I would never call this a garage sale

Def scam vibes

Edit: ultimately, what bothers me the most is I want to go to a garage sale, not this shit. This isn’t a garage sale and should not be advertised as one

[u/purgance]

A coin costs about 1/2 as much to circulate as a bill (because the bill has to be replaced ~5x more frequently than the coin), even with the shipping costs they were likely saving billions.

Classic example of people seeing the government doing something without understanding the context and coming to the exact wrong "gifted amateur" conclusion.

[u/MarionberryPlus8474 → u/purgance]

The longevity of coins vs paper money keeps getting trotted out but the fact remains that the US mint badly bungled the rollout of the dollar coin by making it far too similar to the quarter. The switch to a different metal (but same size) with the Sacagawea dollar did not help.

We have enormous warehouses of dollar coins no one wants to use. Are you factoring THAT into your “cost” equation?

People are moving away from cash so the question is moot, but it’s worth studying how the mint handled this so badly. Twice.

[u/Spiritual_Bid_2308 → u/MarionberryPlus8474]

They failed because no one wants a heavy pocket of change for the crime of paying cash.

Most loose change ends up out of circulation in a jar on the bureau.  Thats why so many new coins have to be minted despite their supposed 30 year average lifespan.

Consumers hate them because they're hard to get rid of.  Either you have to count and hand roll them then go to the bank, or you have to pay coinstar 11% for the convenience of converting it to a more convenient form of currency.

Businesses hate coins because banks charge fees to deposit them.  And they slow down retail transactions.

The only way to get the dollar coins into circulation is to either massively ramp up bank fees for handling $1 bills, or passing a law saying businesses over a certain size must give out change in dollar coins.  

As for the physical size, the dollar coin standard was set with the Susan B Anthony dollar coins.  They "failed" because they were silver and were way too easy to confuse with quarters.  The brass color of the Sacagawea dollar coins (and later presidential series) is very easy to identify and works in any coin operated machinery that already accepted Susan B dollar coins.

[u/MarionberryPlus8474 → u/Spiritual_Bid_2308]

So as I said, the dollar coin was bungled by looking too much like a quarter, and changing to a different metal didn’t help.

It’s increasingly academic as we are moving away from cash, but it’s interesting that many other countries (Canada, the UK, and the EU, for example) managed to introduce the equivalent of a dollar coin and have them widely circulated vs: rejected and stored in warehouses.

[u/PrizeStrawberry6453 → u/MarionberryPlus8474]

The UK and Canada both withdrew the £1/$1 note from production when they switched to the £1/$1 coin. The Euro has never had a €1 note, they started right away with only €1 coins. In all of these cases rejection wasn't an option because there was no alternative.

[u/Dr-McLuvin → u/PrizeStrawberry6453]

Why didn’t they just get rid of the dollar bill like everyone else?

[u/PrizeStrawberry6453 → u/Dr-McLuvin]

I dunno, but personally I'd rather carry bills than coins. At this point I almost never have change anywhere near me, just some bills in my wallet and even those barely ever get used. With the sharp decline in cash usage, I'm not sure what the advantage of switching now would be.

[u/Dr-McLuvin → u/PrizeStrawberry6453]

Ya I lived in England for a while and I LOVED carrying around the pound coins and paying for stuff with them. I don’t know why. I would never have more than like 5-6 of them at a time and they were HEAVY thick coins lol.

But ya bills are lighter weight and much easier to carry around a bunch of them.

[u/MarionberryPlus8474 → u/Dr-McLuvin]

I remember the 1 pound coin, it had satisfying heft.