are these meant for regular circulation or are these "collection items"?
(Im not from the US, so Im not aware of local specifics)
(Im not from the US, so Im not aware of local specifics)
They are "designed" for circulation, but only ever get sold as collectors items. Banks won't stock them but you can order rolls or bags of them from the US mint for a little over face value (I ordered a roll of the space shuttle ones to the UK)
I'm not sure what stops the USA using dollar coins in circulation, I assume there's no legal requirement for banks to stock them?
(The fact that's there's currently at least three different sizes of US dollar coin that is legal tender probably doesn't help either)
But cash register drawers usually do not have a space for them, they’re relatively heavy, and people don’t use them because they don’t use them.
Vending machines famously went ham trying to use them which annoyed people.
It didn’t help that the old Susan B dollar coins were almost a quarter shape and size if you weren’t paying attention.
The dollar coin SHOULD be small, a bit bigger than a dime, imo.
Or just skip the dollar coin and go right to a three dollar coin.
In the US, change is already an annoying factor because sales tax is rarely included in eg, 4.99. So no one is jumping up and down to go from five slices of paper to five rattling coins.
We have a dollar bill
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_B._Anthony_dollar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacagawea_dollar
Dollars are worth a lot less now than they were. If vending machines start charging integer numbers of dollars, maybe dollar coins will catch on.
Concurrent dismay and delight.
"Woah, look at this, I just got it as change from the vending machine. I think it's Middle Eastern. Very exotic."
"It's a dollar coin, US currency."
"Woah! No way, how can you tell!?"
"It says United States of America one dollar?"
"Oh."
That's exactly what I felt at the time too. To me it was always three-quarters delight and one-quarter dismay. A jangling rain of dancing gold coins is a delightful thing. Sure, now I have to go to the bank; but until that time I will walk around as a pirate, pockets full of doubloons.