Monday, January 9, 2012

Macro Monday - US One Dollar Coin

I bought a sandwich from a vending machine today, put a $5 bill into the slot and got back $1.25 in coin for change.  Not 5 quarters, but a dollar coin and a quarter.  From 1794 until 1978 the one dollar coin was large and heavy and until 1964 were made primarily of silver, hence the "silver dollar".  Beginning in 1979 a new smaller dollar coin was introduced.  It is estimated that if the new smaller dollar coin were to replace the dollar bill the savings over 30 years would be about $5.5 Billion dollars.

Unfortunately the smaller coin has been very unpopular and is rarely seen in common circulation. About the only place it is used is in vending machines.  There are several series of the new coin.  This is the reverse (tails) of the Presidential series.  The obverse (heads) is the portrait of one of the presidents this being a 2011 coin with Ulysses S. Grant.  The history of the American dollar is quite interesting and this is already too wordy.  If you want to read all about it see Wikipedia.


more Macro Monday

6 comments:

Anonymous said... [Reply to comment]

Very nice light on this macro shot, but I think it could use a bit more depth of field. Interesting story, I never new that!

Jan n Jer said... [Reply to comment]

I remember when the smaller dollar coins came out...they were about the same size of a quarter n you really had to look to determine which was which!

Unknown said... [Reply to comment]

That is a super macro shot!

Anonymous said... [Reply to comment]

Wonderful details of this coin!

DrillerAA said... [Reply to comment]

I suppose that if the government really wanted to save $5.5 billion, they would just make the transition. However, saving money doesn't seem to be on their agenda. Never has been, probably never will be.

Unknown said... [Reply to comment]

@DrillerAA09
All that is required is to stop printing dollar bills but for whatever reason that has not happened. Other countries have phased out their low denomination bills a long time ago.