We've (Canada) had 1 and 2 dollar coins for a number of years.  Much much better than bills.

The next thing that needs to go is the penny.  Things would work very well with the nickel being the smallest coin.

is so much more annoying than the dollar bill.

It sucks having a wad of coins in my pocket, and how am I supposed to go to a strip club with dollar coins?

and if pitchers wear helmets and visors to avoid getting hit in the head by linedrives.

I agree that the paper dollar is due for a coin replacement, but I think the penny should be eliminated first.

Did baseball ever find its way into the Star Trek universe?  I wonder if Worf would be accused of taking steroids. ;)

100 years from now will the US have finally gone metric?  Scouts will be looking for kids throwing 160 kph...

+1 on the penny. the penny was obsolete decades ago. i can't believe it still exists. pennies make me ANGRY.

but i'll come down on the side in favor of dollar coins:

1. dollar bills have a life expectancy of 18 months. that sucks.
   
2. you wouldn't need to have vending machines that recognize bills any more. well, at least vending machines for things like snacks and soda. for machines that deal in larger currencies (e.g. train & subway ticket machines), they already use dollar coins to give change, since giving bills in change is hard to do for a machine.
   
3. people complain that they'd have to carry around too much weight in dollar coins, but dollar coins don't necessarily have to be big and heavy. and it means you wouldn't need to tote around a zillion quarters (currently the largest useful coinage unit) for laundry, parking, etc., so it could actually help reduce the weight of coins overall.

Who carries cash anymore?  I haven't for years.

Do Pennies Still Make Sense?
As Zinc Prices Rise, the Idea of Losing the Cent Gains Currency

By Jeff Donn
Associated Press
Friday, July 7, 2006

A penny used to buy a loaf of bread, but in an age of inflation and affluence, the coin is slowly sliding into monetary obsolescence.

For the first time, the U.S. Mint has said this year that pennies are costing more than 1 cent to make, thanks to higher metal prices.

That idea of spending 1.2 cents to put 1 cent into play strikes many people as "faintly ridiculous," said Jeff Gore, of Elkton, Md., founder of a group called Citizens for Retiring the Penny.

"The penny is going to disappear soon unless something changes in the economics of commodities," said Robert Hoge, an expert on North American coins at the American Numismatic Society.

Still, Gallup polling has shown that two-thirds of Americans want to keep the penny. There's even a pro-penny lobby called Americans for Common Cents.

"It's part of their past, so they want to keep it in their future," said Dave Harper, editor of Numismatic News.

The Mint's announcement is a milestone, because coins have historically cost less to produce than the face value paid by receiving banks and have usually been moneymakers for the government. Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) wants to keep it that way. When he asked Congress to phase out the penny five years ago, he failed; he plans to try again this year.

The idea of a penniless society began to gain currency in 1989 with a bill in Congress to round off purchases to the nearest nickel. It was dropped, but the General Accounting Office in a 1996 report acknowledged that some people consider the penny a "nuisance coin."

Copper, bronze and zinc have been used to make the penny, and steel was used in 1943 when copper was desperately needed for World War II. In 1982, zinc replaced most of the penny's copper to save money, but rising zinc prices are bedeviling the penny again.

In 2002, Gallup polling found that 58 percent of Americans stash pennies in piggy banks, jars or drawers instead of spending them like other coins. Some people eventually redeem them at banks or coin-counting machines, but 2 percent admit to throwing pennies out.

"It's outlived its usefulness," said Tony Terranova, a New York City coin dealer who paid $437,000 for a 1792 penny prototype in what is believed to be the denomination's highest auction price. "Most people find them annoying when they get them in change."

Not Edmond Knowles, of Flomaton, Ala. He hoarded pennies for nearly four decades as a hobby. He ended up with more than 1.3 million of them -- 4.5 tons -- in several drums in his garage. His bank refused to take them all at once; he finally found a coin-counting company, Coinstar Inc., that wanted the publicity.

In the biggest known penny cash-in, the company sent an armored truck last year, into which Knowles's pennies were loaded. Knowles watched helplessly as the truck sank into the mud in his yard. A tow truck rescued it. His years of collecting brought him about $1 a day -- $13,084.59 in all. Knowles, however, no longer saves pennies. "It's too big a problem getting rid of them," he said.

But others have their reasons for valuing the coin, which borrowed its colloquial name from British currency. The "cent" -- meaning 1 percent of a dollar -- has been struck every year since 1787, except 1815, when the United States ran out of British-made penny blanks after the War of 1812. "It's part of the fabric of American culture," said David Early, a spokesman for the government's Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.

The penny took on the profile of President Abraham Lincoln on the centennial of his birth in 1909. The first ones carried ears of wheat on the tails side, but the Lincoln Memorial has replaced those. Four new tails designs with themes from Lincoln's life are planned for 2009 -- the first major redesign since 1959.

Those who want to keep the penny coin include small merchants who prefer cash transactions, contractors who help supply pennies and consumer advocates who fear the rounding up of purchases.

"We think the penny is important as a hedge to inflation," said executive director Mark Weller of Americans for Common Cents. "Anytime you have more accurate pricing, consumers benefit."

Scores of charities esteem the penny, which many Americans donate without a second thought. The wireless network Virgin Mobile USA recently launched a save-the-penny campaign. Its penny truck will travel cross-country to gather pennies for charity.

"People don't like carrying them around, so we dump them into the nearest bowl," said Teddy Gross, who founded the Penny Harvest charity drive in New York City schools.

Last year, students raked in 55 million pennies. They also bagged about 200,000 spare nickels. By the way, the Mint says nickels are also costing more to produce than they are worth

personally I hate more coins as I find that once you make coins in higher and higher denominations, things that take coins start "accepting" them and suddenly the prices for things such as a coke start going from a dollar to a dollar plus... in fact i saw a can of coke go for $2.25 coins only at a local park

ps haha don't even get ms started on bill accepting vending machines, that "zeep!  zeep!"

i was unclear, i dislike coins of increasing denomination, like our twoonie ($2 coin)  

spend a few months in Europe.  I moved to London 6 months ago, and outside of the weather, the 2nd worst thing about London is...THE FRICKIN 1 POUND AND 2 POUND COINS!  (Yes, the 2p coin sucks too.)  There's nothing worse than going to the grocery store and seeing the total come to 5.16, or 10.61. At that point you do what it takes to find the exact change - and yes, looking around the floor is totally acceptable - because walking around with literally and figuratively pounds of coins in your pocket isn't fun.  I implore you to make a stand against the proposed 1 dollar coin, you'll be a happier person, the nation will be happier, and yes, strippers will be happier.  

My two cents (I couldn't resist)

I agree with above posts that point out the use of credit/debit cards for most day-to-day expenses - certainly has made my life easier (especially now that there are services to help protect identity).

The problem (in my view) is that no matter which physical form the money takes, our money is fiat money.  The government can print and print, or mint and mint, and it is not connected to any backing whatsoever!  And as more dollars are created they are worth less - hence, we are at a point where the penny is valued less than the materials to make it as noted above.

For reasons both good and bad, precious metals hold real value.  In the end paper money is just paper with something printed on it.  A promissory note from the government.  But it is easier to carry around than physical metals and certainly that is why paper money was invented, as the coins just got too difficult to manage.

I would argue that if we went back on the gold standard, and possibly re-thought our coinage strategy, the US would be in stronger shape economically and we wouldn't have to deal with pennies!!!

the antidote to the heavy coin blues is the man purse.  i wish i could find one that wasn't ridiculous.  perhaps with dollar coins, the demand for a nice man purse would spike and viable options would enter the market.  does canada have them?

...back in the day, a penny bought some gum from the machine.  What is it now, a dime or a quarter?

The nice thing about making the dime the lowest level of currency is that we move to one decimal.