Dissing The Benjamins

On our quick trip to Chicago to drop some things off to Richard this weekend, we stopped to gas up at a station somewhere in rural northern Indiana.  As I was paying at the pump, this sign stopped me in my tracks.  What’s wrong with $100 bills, and why would my paying with one affect my safety?

As it happened, I didn’t have any $100 bills.  In fact, I can’t even remember the last time I had a $100 bill in my wallet.  Usually I don’t carry any currency larger than a $20 bill.  Still, if I had a $100 bill, why shouldn’t I be able to pay with it?  How is it unsafe?  What, would the cashier rob me if I flashed a c-note?  Are the other customers at this rustic gas station such a bunch of felons that the sight of a $100 bill is going to provoke them into a frenzy of theft, whereas a wallet with a few twenties wouldn’t?  Is there some problem with the dye used in the portrait of old Ben Franklin?

Most fundamentally, I thought part of conducting a business in America means you have to accept American currency.  I could see declining a $1000 bill and saying you don’t have enough money to make change.  But a $100?  No way!

Funny Money

Today I had to park in a parking garage, and when I paid the parking fee I got two dollar coins for change.  When I looked at the coins, I did a double-take and wondered if I had been scammed, because these dollar coins did not look like bona fide American currency.

Seriously, has anybody else seen these?  My coin featured a perplexed-looking Andrew Johnson — arguably the worst President in American history — on one side and the Statue of Liberty on the other.  It is a garish copper color, it feels like it is made of reclaimed metal, and the art on the coin is pretty cheesy.  Is this real American currency?  It looks like one of those cheap metal tokens you’d get if you got change for a dollar at a video arcade.

I’m assuming it is an actual American coin, in which case I fear for the future of the Republic.  Shouldn’t our currency be a bit more carefully considered and aspirational?   Why in the world would we put one of our worst Presidents on any form of legal tender?  For that matter, why do we have to put Presidents on everything?  Can’t we get back to the point where our coins are more symbolic, like the classic walking Liberty half dollar, or more focused on American history and culture, like the Buffalo nickel?  And if we can’t manage that, can’t we at least create a coin that looks like it is worth its face value?