What is the future of our 5 cent coin?

[redlock]

Last Saturday we made about 140 sales and 115 of those were
EFTPOS.

So 1/6 customers pays cash, 5/6 pay with card. That's indeed rather low.
I would say from my unscientific observations at supermarkets (when I shop) that 2/5 pay cash and 3/5 pay with card here in Germany. That's also down from the 50:50 one or two years ago.

[autocoupler]

Recent activities looking for the 2019 early dollars have made it obvious that minted coinage for general circulation is on the way out. The new poker machines for instance will only provide for a printed ticket when cashing in, and many new machines don't provide a slot for coins. IMO it will be a sad day when we can no longer pay cash, but something Governments yearn for and just another instance of our lives being controlled by big brother.

[fred lever]

The 2019 dated coins are the thin edge of a wedge.
Issuing coins with dates out of sequence simply means that the date has no meaning any more.
Actually as we have seen coins can now be made easily with anything on them, any image, any date.
They could make new coins with 1966 or 2030 on them now and who apart from coin collectors would care?
Our hobby relied on a sequential dating system with new issues by date each year to give you something to collect.
Now they make them with anything on them and tell you to collect that because of that, not the date.
With the way dies are made they can manipulate the sizing of image so there are no longer individual die types for year sets, just a new batch of dies with anything on them.
Thus we now have coins where the date doesn't matter because it could be anything and the image doesn't matter because it can be anything within a window of size.
How are you going to collect coins in any rational way by date and image type as we have been doing, in that new scenario?
Coin collecting died when the technology of die making changed back around 2000-2010.
Thats why most research on coins in Australia is on the pre-decimal or early decimal eras where the coins were manufactured for domestic and commercial use as MONEY. Not like now where coins are made as COLLECTABLES and subject to that market whim of boom and bust .
I am getting old and crabby!!!
Fred.

[chronos]

I too am sad at the reduction of cash payments. It is a method whereby the government can track your spending, where the banks and the card issuers can charge you for buying essentials. It is control and making money for the already rich banks. It was a sad day when the government (in bed with the banks) would no longer let people have a paycheque with real money.

Plus, it puts brake on coin collecting. I am sad and angry that we are letting the government have more and more control and allow the banks to make even more money and we never saw it coming.

Bring back cash...viva la piece de monnaie...

[fred lever]

Actually I'm just waiting for some marketing genius at the Mint to discover that old dated Decimal  Unc and Proof coins sell for big money and from their I-pad knock up some "New old stock" dies and re-issue those pesky rare proof and Unc sets. How easy would that be and what a money spinner!
What could possibly go wrong?
Fred.

[JeffH]

Shades of The Bombay Mint Restrikes of Australia's Proof Copper Coins - 1942 and 1943.
I hope you haven't planted the seed of an idea. I think some mint staff might visit here occasionally.

[fred lever]

Don't worry  Jeff, nobody listens to me anyway................................
Fred.

[JeffH]

I do Fred but that doesn't mean much because nobody listens to me either.
We are likely members of the SOFT* mob.

*Silly Old Farts Team.

[Unicorn]

I listen too ........ and I speak very good Eeeenglish. :laugh2:

¿Qué?

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[JeffH]

If Ross is talking about it then it is becoming an issue.

Royal Australian Mint expects lowly silver coins to be phased out amid rise of contactless payments

[Sapyx]

The five cent is easily gotten rid of, but the 10 cent is not. Keeping just the 20 and 50 would mean it would be much more difficult to make change:

"Here's your $1.30 change" with the 10¢ piece: 3 coins ($1, 20¢, 10¢).
"Here's your $1.30 change" without a 10¢ piece: 5 coins (50¢ and 4 x 20¢).

If cost-saving is an issue, then we can do what literally every other former-sterling-currency-using country (except the Solomon Islands) has done, and make the coins smaller. And if people are still complaining about the inconvenient shape of the 50¢, then make it an equilaterally-curved-heptagon like Britain and many other countries use; they're specifically designed to be a "distinctive shape" that still works well in vending machines.

Not that I've ever seen a vending machine here in Australia refuse or reject 50 cent pieces.

[Mister T]

Solomon Islands have had smaller coins since 2012 haven't they?

[nealeffendi]

Don't know about making coins smaller, wasn't that the complaint about the threepence?

[Mister T]

In England it was at least - was it in Australia too? I guess that was a problem that never even looked at unlike the size of the bronze coins.

[JeffH]

Would have been in Australia as our threepence is smaller than UK 3d.
Similarly complaints about the 1¢ which is barely larger (and definitely smaller than the brass UK 3d).
I have an idea the brass threepence was made larger than the silver one -21mm vs 16mm- partly because many considered the existing threepence too small.