As a Canadian it baffles me that other countries are still messing with pennies. We stopped minting ours in 2012 and haven't looked back. I'm a proponent of cash, but the penny is obsolete. So too is any change smaller than a quarter, IMO.
A number of EU countries (Netherlands, Ireland and Finland, IIRC) have already unilaterally done away with 1c and 2c coins. They're still legal tender, but all prices/sums are rounded to the nearest 5c so they're not necessary.
In poor Eurozone countries like Slovakia or Greece this notion was not received favorably when switching to euro, maybe it has improved since. Supposedly it would hurt the poorest if it's impossible to buy basic food items for unrounded price (in Slovakia the popular bagel-"rožok" has cost 4 eurocents in 2009, currently 7 cents).<p>Likewise, that it is not possible to get 5 euro notes, only 10s at least from most ATMs also caused complaints.
A funny article on the profitability of melting small coins (and you don't even have to melt them yourself to realize value!)<p><a href="http://www.creditbubblestocks.com/2011/02/silverbugs-why-dont-you-buy-nickels.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.creditbubblestocks.com/2011/02/silverbugs-why-don...</a><p>Written at the peak of the last silver blow off top in 2011.
Currencies that are worth $1 more or less should round cash transactions to the nearest 10¢. Then we could simplify coinage considerably and we would all save time waiting in line for people to count out pennies and nickels over amounts that are immaterial.
I'm not clear how this isn't kicking the can down the road for awhile, when eventually nickels will be the new pennies? Is there not a better solution? How much do nickels cost to make?
Relevant video: "Death to Pennies", by CGP Grey<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5UT04p5f7U" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5UT04p5f7U</a>
Or get rid of all change!<p>A while ago I read an article that proposed replacing change with a chance to get a dollar.<p>So instead of 13 cents due to you:<p>1. you generate a random number from 1 to 100
2. if the number is <= 13, you get a dollar; otherwise you get nothing<p>Over the long run you would have about the same amount of money. And you would have the added benefit of not having to deal with change.<p>Coming up with a (verifiable) fair way to do (1) that is accessible to everyone is problematic though...
Yes please!
We spent a year traveling through Europe and it was such a pain in the ass dealing with them.<p>I ended up just not taking then back as change.
I still lament the phasing out of the UK 1/2p coin, loved those as could use them to tighten up screws and adjust the brakes upon my bicycle of the time.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfpenny_(British_decimal_coin)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfpenny_(British_decimal_coi...</a>
More evidence of fiat inflation. Most of the spare change I recieve gets lost or thrown away. Usually if I'm handed coins as change I tell the cashier to keep it because I know i'll never use it. Even homeless people scoff at me when I give them small change.
This is awful news. Inflation will always make people decide to phase-out the smaller denominations. One can argue that the smaller denominations are already useless, but then starting to phase out the smaller denominations will only make sure the population doesn't notice things getting worse over time.<p>There is just a serious answer to this: freedom to trade in whatever currency you'd prefer. Legal tender (when you're forced to use a given currency in a country) sucks.