The great coin shortage of 2021


It's March of 2021 as I write this, and I took the picture at the top of this post inside of the McDonald's  where I pedal over every morning to get my to-go coffee. So if you're reading this at about the same time, you know what's going on, but if you've stumbled on this blog post way in the future, and are doing some research, I'll try to help, and explain what coins were. And on behalf of your grandparents, who probably just got all riled up about this, I apologize.

Back in 2021, in addition to digital money, analog money was still common. It came both printed on pieces of paper, and in small disc-shaped pieces of metal, both of which were stamped with a particular value. When people wanted to purchase something, they could use these items. This practice persisted long after digital currency was available, and for many people, this was the only thing that was "real" money.

Of course, these pieces of paper, and bits of metal, had no intrinsic value, the way that coins did when they were made out of gold and silver. They simply had the value that was stamped on them, and were only valid in the country where they were issued. You could, of course, get gold and silver, which had an international value.

Contrary to popular belief, a dollar hasn't always been the smallest currency in the United States. There was a time when there were hundreths of a dollar, called pennies, and various other divisions of the dollar. Many people at the time took great pride in "making change", a process of counting backwards with these coins, and also with the money that was printed on paper. I myself never learned this skill, and like other old-fashioned skills, like writing in "cursive", it simply went away.

Like all technologies, the transition was a slow one. I myself was an early adopter of digital technology, beginning with a pocket calculator that I had in high school in the 1970s, and then the Apple Macintosh computer in the late 1980s. But people always resist change, just like the people who wouldn't accept "Greenbacks" (paper money) after the Civil War. And actually, they weren't so wrong, it was an unstable system.


I hope this helps. I'm happy to answer these questions for you, and I promise I will never get upset, or start throwing chairs, or say, "what's the world coming to?" I'm old, but not that kind of old.
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Comments

  1. UnknownApril 13, 2021 at 3:14 PM

    https://www.americanbanker.com/news/coin-shortage-eases-as-u-s-ramps-up-production

    ReplyDelete

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