Coin of the realm worth $2 in Canada
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For the third year in a row, our annual vacation in New England included a side-trip to Canada. We went back to Montreal — a really beautiful city with enough "foreigness" to give it an exotic flavor, but familiar enough to be comfortable for Americans with limited experience abroad. And it's less than nine hours from Carlisle by car.
Of course, when you travel to another country you see things done differently than we do them here in the states — and get to decide which works better.
This time, I came back thinking about money.
We spent one afternoon exploring Montreal's famous "underground" — a vast network of interconnected tunnels beneath the city streets that contain over 1,700 stores and businesses, plus theaters, hotels, restaurants, museums, subway stops and other attractions. The whole thing, which is built on several levels, covers more than 18 miles — although not all the parts are linked and you sometimes have to come up to the street to enter another area of it.
The underground was designed mainly to let Montrealers get around the city in comfort during the city's long and harsh winters — but the air-conditioned network works nicely on hot summer days too.
Anyway, we stopped for lunch at one of the underground's many food courts. They offer familiar chains, such as Subway and McDonald's, but also dozens of booths specializing in foods from around the world, reflecting Montreal's diverse population.
My wife chose Chinese food and my son went for the Japanese kiosk. I wandered over to a small stand selling Lebanese dishes.
The best deal was a combo platter for about $6.25 in Canadian dollars, equal to about $5.25 American.
I handed the Lebanese shopkeeper a $20 bill and he gave me back a $10 bill and a small bunch of change.
I stared at the money and instinctively thought, "Hey, wait a minute — this isn't right. He owes me $13.75. Where's the rest of it?"
Then I remembered: That small bunch of change included a $2 coin, a $1 coin, and three quarters. He'd given me my $13.75 — just not in a form I recognized. I had been looking for paper ones, but the smallest Canadian paper is the five.
The shopkeeper must have noticed the initial frown on my face.
"Something wrong?" he asked
"No, no," I quickly answered. "I just keep forgetting you guys don't have one-dollar bills and that you have this two-dollar coin."
He looked puzzled.
"You don't have those coins in the United States?" he asked in the same way he might ask, "You put ketchup on your ice cream in the United States?"
I explained that we had a $1 coin, but no one ever used it. And that we had a $2 bill but no one ever used it. And that we had 50-cent coins, but hardly anyone ever used them either.
He was openly surprised. Our money system struck him as not only odd, but senseless.
He's not the first to feel that way, of course. Recent efforts to get Americans to accept $1 coins have all failed miserably. The Susan B. Anthony dollar died without a trace. The Sacagawea dollar debuted in 2000 to much ballyhoo — the "golden dollar" was going to be the silver bullet, so to speak.
Ha. The coins turned an ugly brown after a few weeks, which was ok since the vast majority of them lay unseen in closets and sock drawers. Really, when was the last time you paid for something with one — or got one back in change?
Now there's a new $1 coin on the way in 2007 — Sacagawea will be dumped in favor of U.S. presidents in a series similar to the popular "state" quarters.
People will love them — but will they use them? Probably not. Most experts say the dollar coin doesn't stand a chance until we abolish the $1 bill — and that just isn't going to happen anytime soon.
As for the remarkably useful $2 coin, forget it. No one is suggesting that Americans are ready for that leap. In fact, we can't cope with the $2 bill, even though it's been around since 1862. Some people don't even recognize it as "money." Just a few months ago, a Maryland man was arrested and hauled off in handcuffs for trying to buy something at Best Buy with $2 bills. The store clerk mistakenly thought they were counterfeit.
The fate of the half-dollar coin really puzzles me. When I was a kid, 50-cent coins were as common as quarters and dimes. You got them and you spent them. Now, I see that coin in my change maybe once or twice a year. Very strange.
The Canadian system makes a lot of sense. Taking a $2 coin from your pocket is much more convenient than fishing two $1 bills from your wallet. A $1 coin takes up a lot less pocket space than four quarters. Interestingly, the Canadians still cling to that utterly goofy nuisance, the penny, just like we do.
But money is a lot like food — people can be as inexplicably finicky about what they'll spend as about what they'll eat. To Americans, dollar bills are hot dogs and apple pie. The $2 bill is chocolate-covered worms.
As for the $1 coin — well, you wouldn't eat dirt, would you?
Rich Lewis' e-mail address is:
rlcolumn@comcast.net
