Steel nickels are the only durable choice, but pure nickel plating will cause allergic reactions. Use the industrial proven 88% zinc/12% nickel plating instead, though this isn’t something that’s current available by coin blank providers. We just need to educate people that these new nickels won’t work in vending machines. I doubt they’d care. Nickels will be phased out eventually and it won’t affect the vending industry.

There’s no real need to change dimes and quarters. We need to take Congress out of these decisions if anything is to get done.

Yes, to begin with, people will make mistakes. Nowadays people may be in too much of a hurry to bother trying to tell new coins from old the coins bu ONLY changing the OBV and REV designs. So – like Canada has done in the past – have 12 flat sides (think stop sign with 12 sides) on all new coins. Also radically change the OBV and REV so none of the older ones could be altered (by hammering the sides) to look like a new one.

Of course there will be some who will alter the old ones and there will be some fooled by the deception. But as the older coins disappear from usage, this problem will also disappear. If someone is taken, its their own fault (and I include myself).

Money is saved in the making of the coins.

Want even more savings?

Step 2: Making polymer notes instead of paper would further the savings since polymer notes last longer – as proven in other countries.

Actual problems with implementing this proposed system: politicians getting paybacks from those with a monetary interest in the current system as it exists – such as those who supply “paper” for bills to be printed on. It is likely this common sense, easy fix will never be employed. Instead more money will be wasted for years while the debate rages.

Why can’t we just bite the bullet and drag our coinage system kicking and screaming into the modern world? Get rid of the penny, eliminate the $1 bill and replace it with $1 coins and mint a small, easily-distinguished $2 coin. If we were going to fully dive in, no matter how sentimental people are about the quarter why should we continue to mint a coin that doesn’t fit in a standard decimal system and was only created for compatibility with Spanish pesetas? Every other country that studied the problem adopted 20-cent coins and mints functionally-sized 50-cent coins.

I know, it’s the same reason we keep using feet and pounds while the rest of the world measures by tens. Doing anything practical would be un-American, and we’re different.

Every willful discussion about how we can debase our coinage to make its price more palatable is willful acceptance of the theft of your purchasing power through inflation.

I want to go in the other direction, a return to constitutional money that will reveal the largest fraud and Ponzi Scheme in the history of history.

The reason the above situation is being discussed is because a small group of very bad people have conspired to steal from you. Inflation is theft. Stop trying to find solutions for your government to rob you blind. When a penny can no longer buy so much as a gumball, don’t take it out on the gumball.

My guess is that the composition of the nickel will have to change, though it sounds like that can has been kicked down the road. Eventually the only circulating coins will be that one (for awhile at least), the dime, and the quarter. When and if one and two (remember them?) bills are no longer printed we’ll finally get one dollar and two dollar coins that really circulate…heck, eventually we’ll get five and ten dollar coins (think they’ll be called half and full eagles?). But, again, given the speed at which government moves it will take some strong inflationary pressure before Congress faces reality.

If anything, they should be finding a more expensive metal alloy to use for coins denominated $2, $5, and $10 to deter counterfeiting (a problem I’ve read that goes on with British pound coins). ATMs make people withdraw in $20 increments so it seems reasonable to conclude the $20 bill is the “dollar” of our time. Eliminate the cent, nickel, dime, $1, $2, $5, and $10 bills (replacing the lost currency denominations with like-denominated coins).

I’ve seen the sales sheets in my store. The average item cost in a supermarket hovers around $2.40 and $2.60. Quarters are barely justifiable with those numbers but whatever. The cheapest items you can still buy are 25¢ Ramen noodle bricks and 49¢ small cans of corn. Cents, nickels, and dimes are not practical under present pricing schemes. Rounding prices to the nearest quarter-dollar would not impact anything. It’s often cited that the cent in the early 1900s had the purchasing power of a quarter today so if they could deal with such imprecision, why can’t we?