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The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

cnn.com

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Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#861

Post by oktoberpaard »

coded_monkey wrote: post #610
oktoberpaard wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Netherlands cash payments get rounded to the nearest 5 cents, in both directions. Card payments are not rounded. If I’m not mistaken, you can still demand exact change according to the law and you’re allowed to pay the exact amount (cents are still legal tender). Most merchants wouldn’t be able to give you exact change, so it depends on the situation what would happen. I’ve never heard of such a situation happ…

You are mistaken. Merchants are allowed to round to the nearest 5 cents and you can’t do anything about it (except pay by card). Of course, budget stores like Lidl and Aldi still use them but any other corporation is not going to care. http://www.nederlandsemunten.nl/Artikelen_over_munten/De_cen...

Thanks for the correction. So only the part about legal tender was correct, which is probably what I was confused with. The relevant part:

> The one and two cent coins will remain legal tender, and retailers can choose whether or not to participate. The Netherlands cannot declare the smallest coins worthless on its own in Europe; this must be arranged in Brussels.

The government page about this: https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/betalingsverkeer/vr...

> Of course, budget stores like Lidl and Aldi still use them but any other corporation is not going to care.

What do you mean with this? Surely the Lidl and Aldi don’t give exact change by default in the Netherlands in 2025?

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#862

Post by oktoberpaard »

pests wrote: post #439
oktoberpaard wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Netherlands cash payments get rounded to the nearest 5 cents, in both directions. Card payments are not rounded. If I’m not mistaken, you can still demand exact change according to the law and you’re allowed to pay the exact amount (cents are still legal tender). Most merchants wouldn’t be able to give you exact change, so it depends on the situation what would happen. I’ve never heard of such a situation happ…

If someone demands exact change is it allowed to give them more? What if you don't have the exact change?

Apparently I was wrong about that part. Only the part about cents still being legal tender was correct. So you can pay the exact amount, but not demand the exact change.

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#863

Post by PostOnce »

stevage wrote: post #802
totallykvothe wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll agree on all but one point. The cotton/linen notes feel so much better in the hand than the candy wrapper plastic of Canadian bills. I know it's a dumb reason, but I just hate the feeling.

Australian here. Barely anyone uses cash anymore. It's weird to see debates about moving towards technology we had 35 years ago which we don't even use anymore.

Electronics continue to fail in severe weather events, and cash keeps working, which is important when we're talking about food.

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#864

Post by epolanski »

b112 wrote: post #252
Night_Thastus wrote: post #141

I'd say screw it, get rid of nickles and dimes as well. Quarters can stay, for now. It's a complete waste of money and time continuing to mint such low-value currency. It can't be used for just about anything. Unfortunately, I do see the problem with part of this. For a handful of items where it does matter, it will force people to use cards more if they want to avoid rounding. And the card providers already have a c…

I know you're referencing more than pennies, but to speak to pennies, I find the current rounding noise in the US to be weird. Likely, it's just more of the media, talking heads, and youtube personalities trying to turn a nothing into something, story. Back when we did it in Canada, I don't recall a single person I knew concerned about penny rounding. Everyone was sick of pennies. No one cared. Everyone was happy. An…

+1

We getting rid in Europe of 1 and 2 cents which are more valuables than pennies and nobody gives two damns.

Even roundings in Italy, by law, now are 5 cent based: meaning you can't have a bill that ends with 5 cents it has to get rounded to the nearest multiple of ten cents.

Seriously, nobody cares.

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#865

Post by technothrasher »

forinti wrote: post #705
basscomm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everyone gets pennies as change but few carry them around let alone spend them It's not just pennies, it's all coins. In a former life I worked in retail and almost nobody would fish around in their pockets for exact (or even near) change. They'd always hand me bills for their purchase even if they had just completed a transaction and had the coins in their pocket . That was in the 90's, and I still see it happenin…

I like using coins because I'm always looking for commemorative coins. It's an interesting investment: you can immediately double or triple your money. Unfortunately, you rarely find them. I also keep the obvious fakes.

The best unexpected coin I found in the drawer when I was working at a liquor store was an 1844 Belgian 1/2 Franc in with the dimes.

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#866

Post by randomtoast »

chiph wrote: post #216

Like many people, I throw my change into a jar when I get home. One time I only kept pennies and used an old apple cider jug. Turns out that a gallon of pennies is worth almost $55 [0]. And that carrying a heavy glass jug filled with pennies to the Coinstar machine is very anxiety inducing. Speaking of which - the Coinstar machines near me will give you several options for redemption. Some of which have been Amazon a…

You probably could have made $150 if you had melted the coins and sold the copper instead.

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#867

Post by bloak »

sschueller wrote: post #839
Night_Thastus wrote: post #141

I'd say screw it, get rid of nickles and dimes as well. Quarters can stay, for now. It's a complete waste of money and time continuing to mint such low-value currency. It can't be used for just about anything. Unfortunately, I do see the problem with part of this. For a handful of items where it does matter, it will force people to use cards more if they want to avoid rounding. And the card providers already have a c…

Quarters don't make sense to me. We don't have $25 notes either why should be have 25c coins?

I don't know the history of it but I noticed that the currency of the Netherlands, before they switched to the euro, consistently used quarters:

Coins: 0.05, 0.10, 0.25, 1, 2.5, 5 Bank notes: 10, 25, 50, 100, 250

OK, there seems to be a gap there, but no coin or bank note is worth 2 * 10^X.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_guilder

Is there another currency that consistently prefers 2.5 * 10^X to 2 * 10^X?

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#868

Post by vlovich123 »

zahlman wrote: post #810
quesera wrote: post #776

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entering your PIN and using a debit card is the least secure/safe version of electronic payment. Tapping (NFC) or dipping (EMV) are safer and faster for everyone.

How do you figure? My threat model includes people stealing the card. I can have tap disabled on the card, and then thieves don't know my PIN. Yes, yes, that's like 13 bits of entropy. But it's not like they can use a computer to brute-force it.

I think your threat model is incomplete. You’re far more likely to have your card cloned and pin stolen through a fake terminal. I’ve actually had that happen to me vs 0 times have I had fraudulent transactions due to a stolen card.

Tap/dip payment is non cloneable even by a fake terminal. Outside the US tap+pin/dip+pin is even common but banks for some reason really are averse to requiring Americans to add a pin to credit cards.

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#869

Post by bloak »

whycome wrote: post #601
zahlman wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before Canada stopped using its penny, it was common to find American pennies in circulation. It's still fairly common to find American nickels, quarters and dimes in circulation. (Probably mostly dimes if I had to guess.) They're generally accepted at par because nobody is even really looking at them and if they did it wouldn't really represent being, well, short-changed.

I’ve found that self-checkouts in Canada are a great way to get rid of piles of change. You can pretty much dump it in. Curiously, it will reject all the US coins and spit them back out.

Same in Britain (except that the rejection of US coins is ... less curious). The funny thing is that sometimes they have these strange machines nearby that I have never seen anyone using[1] but which claim to be able to convert coins for you while taking a cut.

It's true that not all the self-checkouts accept cash but if you go when it's not too busy you can easily find one that does.

[1] OK, I've occasionally "used" one myself but not for putting coins into it. I just like to cheer myself up by reading the hilarious list of objects that I shouldn't insert into it.

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#870

Post by sunaookami »

emodendroket wrote: post #390
burningChrome wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> and we won't have $100 bills anymore. Heard some pundits on the radio talking about the elimination of the penny and one of them who worked at the Secret Service as an analyst talked about why the US paper money only goes to $100 bills. He said it was to reduce criminals and illicit activity and criminals having to store it. He related the story of Pablo Escobar's brother or cousin who was the accountant for the c…

The 500-euro bill is being phased out for similar reasons. Though it's worth noting a 100-dollar bill was worth more than twice what it is today when Pablo Escobar died.

And many stores do not accept 200 Euro bills due to the same reason.
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