One of these days, Congress will bite the bullet and dollar bills will be discontinued and dollar coins will flood the marketplace but with all these unlikely-to-be-seen designs, I wonder how the public will handle the coins when someone tries to spend them?

Correction: I should have said that New Zealand eliminated its 5¢ coins, not Australia (it’s been a while since I visited down under). Oz still has 5¢ coins, but both it and NZ dropped their 1¢ and 2¢ coins years ago.

The UK’s thinking about discontinuing its 1p and 2p coins but so far they’re still in circulation. Several Eurozone countries no longer require 1- and 2-cent coins but still accept those that “leak” in from other member states. Australia’s gone full-bore and eliminated both its 1¢ and 5¢ coins a number of years ago. Unfortunately neither we nor Canada can easily eliminate their 5¢ coins because we both use 25¢ pieces instead of 20¢ coins; in the absence of a 5¢ coin, making change would be very cumbersome because it would require a large number of dimes.

The cynic in me expects that my great-grandchildren will still be using 1-cent coins because of both the level of politics involved and the resistance of so many people to doing anything new or different, even if it saves all sorts of bucks. Heck, we’re also the only country that still primarily uses SAE measurements – which wastes maybe $75 BILLION a year – but people screech like wounded seagulls whenever anyone suggests giving up furlongs and hogsheads.