Martin Crutsinger of the AP writes in a story released today:

Can George Washington and Thomas Jefferson succeed where Susan B. Anthony and Sacajawea failed? The U.S. Mint is hoping America’s presidents will win acceptance, finally, for the maligned dollar coin.

File this one under, “Esoteric and Seemingly Inconsequential Issues About Which I Have Surprisingly Strong Opinions.”

I’ve wished for years that the US would discontinue the dollar bill—they don’t do much and cost more to produce than they are actually worth. I had hopes for the Sacajawea coin back in 2000, but I doubt that its failure was due to a lack of popularity for Lewis and Clark’s guide. When introduced, the US Mint encouraged numismatists to keep the coins in their collections and thus take them out of circulation, which is a nice way of working against inflation. Also, the Mint didn’t produce many of the coins. I didn’t see a Sacajawea dollar until 2002 or 2003. Thirdly, when there are two forms of currency worth the same amount, I assume that people will use the one with which they are most familiar. In this case, people kept using dollar bills. There are also a host of other problems to introducing any new coin. Cash registers don’t have slots for them, only a few vending machines can take them, etc.

I do wish, however, that the U.S. would go to the dollar coin, discontinue printing dollar bills, and commit to taking the bills out of circulation. While they’re at it, why not introduce the two dollar coin as well, which would help ease fears that dollar coins would be too heavy? When we were in New Zealand, we used both one dollar and two dollar coins, which was very easy and actually didn’t weigh our pockets down. As an aside, I think we could learn a lot from New Zealand’s currency. Their “paper” bills—which are really a tough, pliable, and waterproof plastic—look cool with their variety of colors; the denominations are in different sizes, making detection between the bills easy; and the smallest denomination they have is a five dollar bill. Also, the Kiwis have eliminated the penny, which is a brilliant idea, in my opinion. All transactions there are rounded up or down to the nearest five cents. Sometimes you pay a little more than you should and sometimes you pay a little less, but it evens out. I know that discontinuing the penny would take away the pride, altruism, and sense that they are helping humanity when they put a penny in the “Take a Penny, Leave a Penny” dish at the gas station, but I think we’ll recover.

In conclusion, dollar coins: good. Dollar bills: bad. Pennies: awful.