Sceat, Denier, Stycca, Penning

[numbat]

Apparently it is the intention of the New Zealand government to take out of circulation their five-cent piece. At least so it was claimed on ABC radio this afternoon. The presenter who mentioned this story also asked if perhaps Australia should follow New Zealand's lead and scrap our own smallest silver coin. Which at first glance appears to be a

Comments

[the_gardener]

The costs of minting a small denomination coin may exceed the costs of keeping it in circulation, it's true. But the inevitable result of removing a small denomination coin from circulation is that prices are then rounded up to the next whole number, causing a burst of inflation -- cf what happened in the UK when we switched to decimal coinage in 1971.

[hnpcc]

I really hope they don't take out the 5c piece. It just doesn't have the same ring if things are $19.90 instead of $19.95 - it was bad enough when they had to go down from $19.99.

Yeah I know, it's all $20 anyway.

But also... even though they clog up my purse and are what I end up giving to people wanting to wash the windscreen at lights because the parking machines don't take them I still like 5c pieces.

And it'll make me feel really old if they go too...

[numbat]

Let us hope then that the Rodent and his crew don't see events in NZ as any sort of excuse.

[stillcarl]

Hee - I never thought about the $19.95 thing.

Don't believe they do that just to make people think it's so much cheaper than $20 though. It's so they can give back those 5 cent coins to the customers who pay with dollar denominations, thus stopping them having to count and bank huge numbers of the damned things!

[headgardener]

Ah, they're such cute tiny little things -- every currency needs its play money, you know.

[numbat]

And it's not as if Australian coins are up their with the exciting currencies. Indeed, if I compare the local offerings to the change I picked up in Hong Kong I would rate the Australian coins as a pretty stodgy lot in design.