My 20 Cents…

Here in the UK, if you tried to buy a £5 magazine in 20p coins, at best you’d get a funny look. Shop staff don’t want to count that many coins. It holds up the queue whilst they check the change you’ve given them, and it’s not particularly interesting to count coins anyway.

I should imagine this happens in Japan and the US too, but if you take all your lower denominations of currency to your bank or post office, they will exchange them for larger value coins.

Eg: take 600x 1 pence coins, be given 6x 1 Pound coins, or 12x 50 pence coins.

I can’t really think of anything you can buy for anything less than 50p anyway here, other than the odd chocolate bar.

In the US and Canada, it is generally considered poor taste and rude to pay in all pennies (1 cent coins), all nickels (5 cent coins) or all dimes (10 cent coins). If you have them in coin rolls, it’s less offensive. It takes a lot of time to count out small change and most retail workers will either refuse payment in that manner or give you a dirty look.
Canada, however, has one and two-dollar coins. The stigma of using change is a little smaller up here.
Still, the use of small change is often perceived as a sign of desperation or poverty as panhandlers and beggars often make transactions in large cups of change.

i live in Canada and i’ve payed for an entire meal ( about 20 dollers) in toonies ($2), Nickles (10 cents) dimes ( 5 cents) and pennies. they cashier was pissed off but she has to take it.if its legal money they have to unless there’s a sing saying ” we do not accept ______ bills” mostly 100 doller bills i remember i worked at a grocery store and a kid came in and bought candy and payed for it in all pennys (1cent coin) and i had to stand there and count out hundreds of pennys, no one complained about it cuz thats all the kid had… and plenty of us have done it as kids and adults.

Dude , no saine country will have this carzy laws !!!
OJP = only in Japan !!!

Hi, I was just browsing Neatorama and they happened to have something that was related. Someone in New Jersey tried to pay his traffic ticket in pennies and got into trouble. http://wcbstv.com/watercooler/pennies.traffic.ticket.2.888243.html

I must be the only person as a small child growing up finding coins in the washer/dryer, on the floor, or given pennies/nickels/dimes from my parents at the end of the day, with my ziplock bag or coffee can full of change with only a few quarters and a zillion pennies. I was never once turned down from the ice cream truck, or 7/11 with my legal tender, not once. A many a ice cream and gum, lemonheads, laffy taffy and what-not had been bought in my time as a child, there was no penny discrimination growing up where i’m from i guess. maybe because i was just a child, i don’t know. As for the Euro coins, when i left germany to go to japan, i had 230$ roughly in Euro coins that i exchanged. Going out and getting drunk and throwing my coins in a small clay pot, landed me a couple hundred bucks after 2 years. not bad i say. Can you imagine when i got to germany, my first time going to a strip club, only trying to imagine where i’m supposed to put a 1 euro coin at on the stripper…lol good times.