Tuesday, March 5, 2013

The Pros and Cons of Paper Money and Coins

There are a lot of pros and cons when it comes to coins, and a lot of pros and cons when it comes to paper money (or bills, as they are sometimes called). But which is better?

To help you answer that question for yourself I've made a list of five things that should mainly be considered in determining which is better, paper money, or coins:

Durability

Hands down this goes to coins.

Paper money only lasts for a few years at the most before finally it has to be taken out of circulation as a result rips and tears and the ink fading, while coins practically last forever.

In fact there are coins that are thousands of years old that are still around (although not in circulation) and I still occasionally get a wheat penny.

Cost effectiveness

Paper money wins this one

While you still have to manufacture new bills every year to replace the old ones, it's still a lot cheaper to manufacturer paper money than it is coins.

In fact the penny and the nickel actually cost more to make than what they are actually worth, and many countries have actually stopped manufacturing pennies altogether because they are just not worth the cost (Canada being the most recent as of this post).

Portability

Again this goes to paper money as well.

This reason why paper money is more portable than coins is very simple: you can put bills into wallets, putting them all in one nice little place, and they are much lighter than coins, thus easier to transport. Plus, because you can actually put bills in wallets, it makes it much harder to lose them then coins (unless of course you lose your wallet).

Counterfeiting

When it comes to counterfeiting, coins win this.

While coins can be counterfeited, simply because there is so much more involved (and expensive) with making a coin then paper money, most counterfeiters don't even bother to try to make counterfeit coins, and instead make counterfeit bills.

Heck, the only thing you really need to make your own counterfeit paper money is a scanner and printer combo. You'll of course be caught very quickly if you try to send it anywhere and arrested, but you can do that a lot easier then making a coin.

Disabled friendly

Unless paper money is made at different sizes, the blind can't tell a $1 bill from a $100 bill.

Simply by the fact that no two coin denominations are alike (in size, thickness, engravings, and the edges along the coins) it's far easier for the blind to tell one coin apart from another.

In fact the reason why coins were designed the way they were is so that it would be easier for the blind to use in the first place.

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