Originally Posted by
sent
I never got a chance to order the dollar coins but I could use them now! My second car doesn't have EZ Pass since I drive it infrequently. Yet you can't drive on the roads in NJ and NYC without going through 3 toll booths for a 15 mile drive. There are barely any tolls left in the tri-state that are under $1 yet all the tolls booths have "Exact Change Only" lanes that are always empty. The banks give me a funny look when I ask for dollar coins and then after much searching,they scrounge up 3 Sacajawea dollars. Where are all the dollar coins?!!!
They are at that d___ vault that NPR took pictures at, or at the new facility that NPR claimed was being built to store them. The banks were always the problem. The banks declared that customers did not want them and they refused to circulate the dollar coins to retail or commercial customers; the banks just sent them to the Fed, who stored them in the vaults and warehouses. This was always nonsense. I circulated plenty of dollar coins and I deposited a lot more. I never received a negative reaction when circulating them, in fact it was usually the opposite - people were delighted to receive them. The Mint and the frequent flyers received bad publicity when the bad publicity should have gone to the banks.
The banks could still order them from the Fed, but they won't and don't. Consequently, the dollar coins are almost impossible to find. I wish I would have saved more back to use on mass transit and in vending machines - much more convenient than getting dollar bills into the readers.