Hi all
In the United States are there still old coins & notes in circulation or have they been removed. Is it still possible to get something from the 1920's or 1930's in your change when you go out shopping?
Quote: "Merv"Hi all
In the United States are there still old coins & notes in circulation or have they been removed. Is it still possible to get something from the 1920's or 1930's in your change when you go out shopping?
They are still there but not as many as were released as people have taken them out of circulation due to their collectability or metal content. You can find say a 1920 1c or a buffalo nickel in your change but it would be uncommon and due to the rise in silver prices most 25c pre-64 coins have been taken out of circulation.
Your best option would be to 'coin roll hunt' to get these coins for face value, (buying rolls of cents etc at the bank and searching through them for old/rare coins.
Old Banknotes are even less likely to be fund in circulation due to their short lifespan and tendency to be destroyed by damage caused over the years although it is still possible to find them.
'We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.'
Sir Winston Churchill
So in theory it is possible to make a make up a full run of dates of coins & notes just from circulation.
Here in the UK we only get the chance to go back to when we went decimal , and that changed for some coins when they reduced the sizes of the 5p , 10p , & 50p's.
Some people don't like the way that the Mint are issuing all the commemorative's , but if it gets some of the younger generation into collecting at lease it may be good for the hobby and keep it alive a few years longer.
Count yourself lucky if you're back in blighty; in the Eurozone the oldest coins you can find in circulation are date 1999....
But yeah, I've seen many posts by Americans who find Indian Head Cents, Buffalo/Liberty Nickels, and even silver dimes/quarters in circulation. Technically all US coins have never been demonetised (or so I've heard), so you can technically spend Flowing Hair Dollars for their face value today. You'd have to be pretty stupid to, though...
As for banknotes, I've also seen some Americans getting silver certificates or red seal notes from circulation, although like Mr. Midnight said I suspect old notes are much rarer to be found in circulation than old coins. Unrelated but on a package from the US I once received, it had a stamp from 1963.
it is true that every US coin ever struck is still legal currency. the exception that proves the rule is that some 20c. coins were made for one or two years only, long ago, and there is no slot in the cash drawer for them any more.
As for bills,(US paper money, no American has ever said 'banknote'), I myself did spend recently a 1934 $1 silver certificate - it was so soft and dark, a dealer i know would not give me more than a dollar, he actually said, "just spend that". so i did, but it took another one, plus six cents to get a decent cup of coffee in this town.
Jamais l'or n'a perdu la plus petite occasion de se montrer stupide. -Balzac
In the US you also have the extra area of the different mints to collect.
Following the comment about Euro's only issued from 1999, at least in the Euro currency zone with all the tourism you can collect a lot of different countries without leaving your town.
I have just started on Euro currency & asked a friend to look out for any different looking €2.00's while he was in Austria, he brought me back a 2010 DeGaulle's Radio Speech Commorative from France and an ordinary €2.00 from Luxembourg so I was happy when he gave me them.
Quote: "Mr. Midnight" no American has ever said 'banknote'
Really? I guess I'll stick that next to "soccer", "bucks", and "Fahrenheit" then.
But anyway, if your soft dark $1 silver certificate was so bad that it's not worth even a dollar, how did the barista accept it as payment?
To be fair the term soccer was invented by the English and we just adopted it...but in response to the thread, I have gotten silver certificates of the 1$ and 5$ variety. 10$ bills from 1934 and some other notes like 2$ from the 50s. I also have gotten silver halves, quarters, dimes and nickels as well as pennies as far back as 1912. All of this has been in change or easily picked up at the bank.
Aye, I read somewhere that most American oddities are actually the old way of doing things (e.g. imperial units) that stuck around there after the rest of the Anglosphere moved on.
Anyway, I can actually see how Americans might (more likely) find old currency if it has a green seal; all the way back to 1928 when the current series of US small notes debuted, in fact. It's certainly more likely than silver certificates or red seal notes, whose colour would likely have led to their being removed from circulation earlier.
Yes silver is getting very hard to get in change now. I get something about every 2 to 3 months. Mostly dimes.
Old notes, well you have to have a job where you see a lot in one day. The gas station manager gave me a one from the 1930's. And the girls at the bank save me stuff, A nice 1928 2 dollar bill. Corner gone
But there are some very nice things out there. A few months ago got a 1909 with vbd, But last night got this one
a 1958 nickel
not too bad for 60 years old
Do the banks have Half Dollar coins ready to give you if you ask for them ?
If yes , would it not be better if you used them to try and keep them in circulation, if they are withdrawn from circulation you will lose a part of your heritage and they will become just another part of your country's history.
Yes, you can get them at banks. I agree with you in principal, we should try to use them, but I think it is already a lost cause.
In the same way, I use paper money instead of credit most of the time too, to push back against the "cashless economy" . I get $100 bills from the bank every week and spend them at the market. I wonder if that is a lost cause too.
Jamais l'or n'a perdu la plus petite occasion de se montrer stupide. -Balzac
Yes the US fifty cent coin is a lost cause. Some banks do not have them anymore for people. You can order them at a cost, and to return charge a rate above face value. Americans never really used or like large coins. Just like dollar coins. From the 1960's up .
Me alike the fifty cent coins and keep everyone I come across.
I remember reading a blog post about how someone would "fix American currency".
They had ideas like eliminating the penny and nickel, replacing the quarter with a 20¢ coin, and re-introducing half-dollars, dollars and even a two dollar coin to circulation like in Canada. I don't remember the address of the article, but it's an interesting idea.
Public inertia would probably kill off such an reform initiative, though.
Cass , Americans do not like change. The 1 cent coin should have been pulled in 2009. The cost to make and ship them is any were from 3 to 7 cents. And they don't want to the 1 dollar bill to go away because they don't want a lot of coins in there pockets. So we pay a lot to keep the 1 dollar bill, That only last 6 months, were a coin can last 20 to 30 years.
Quote: "ALLRED1950" Cass , Americans do not like change. The 1 cent coin should have been pulled in 2009. The cost to make and ship them is any were from 3 to 7 cents. And they don't want to the 1 dollar bill to go away because they don't want a lot of coins in there pockets. So we pay a lot to keep the 1 dollar bill, That only last 6 months, were a coin can last 20 to 30 years.
I see; there's probably also a cultural phenomenon that contributes to the inertia, since the $1 US note has been around since 1862, and in it's current size and form since 1928. Same goes for getting rid of the penny; by contrast there's relatively little going for the half dollar in popular culture, so that may explain why it's on it's way out.
Quote: "ALLRED1950" Cass , Americans do not like change.
very good double entendre. Besides not wanting to fish around in a purse of coins all the time, Americans are in general very conservative and will resist proffered changes to established institutions.
Jamais l'or n'a perdu la plus petite occasion de se montrer stupide. -Balzac
Quote: "ALLRED1950" Cass , Americans do not like change.
very good double entendre. Besides not wanting to fish around in a purse of coins all the time, Americans are in general very conservative and will resist proffered changes to established institutions.
That's manifested itself before in much uglier ways than resistance to currency reform.
But here's a new idea; how would you think that re-introducing fractional currency notes would be received by the American public? Daryl said Americans dislike coins, but then again there's the resistance to change, so I'd like to hear about that.
Quote: "CassTaylor"
But here's a new idea; how would you think that re-introducing fractional currency notes would be received by the American public? Daryl said Americans dislike coins, but then again there's the resistance to change, so I'd like to hear about that.
Gotta love their designs too.
I think that would be a non-starter.
Jamais l'or n'a perdu la plus petite occasion de se montrer stupide. -Balzac
Quote: "Merv"Are all of the Quarters from 1999 with the States on minted by both Detroit & Philadelphia?
Yeah, P and D for circulation, S for proofs.
People who coin roll hunt occasionally find impaired proofs that got released into circulation, either because their quality wasn't up to par, or by people who inherited them and just didn't know the value of what they had.
