US Bills and Coins

All dollar bills (notes) are exactly the same size and basically green colour which can lead to confusion so be careful when handing over bills or receiving change.

To help combat counterfeiters the US Treasury have started to use colour-shifting inks starting with the $20 bill in 2003, $50 bill in 2004, $10 bill in 2006 and the $100 bill in 2007. There are no plans to update the $5, $2 or $1 bills at this time and all the old style bills are still valid.

The dollar bills come in denominations of $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100. A dollar is often called a buck.

Coins in regular circulation consist of the:

It is worth keeping a handful of quarters in your car for paying tolls on some roads where they have automatic toll booths.

Do not take foreign cash; i.e. Sterling or Euros, as it will be difficult to convert this into Dollars.

New Coins

The US Mint introduced another $1 coin just before President's Day in 2007. This time it is a gold coloured coin featuring George Washington on one side and the Statue of Liberty on the other side. An image can be found in the March 2007 newsletter.

The intention is to feature a different former president every three months in the order in which they served and the series will run up until 2016. The second coin in the series featuring John Adams was issued in May.

This follows on from the successful series of 50 State Quarters that are being issued. Each State is having its own design on the quarter, the one for Florida was released in April 2004.

The other presidents to be honoured this year after John Adams are Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

The two previous attempts to introduce a $1 coin have been largely unsuccessful. Both the Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea dollar coins were not accepted by the public but this time the Mint have ordered 300 million of the George Washington dollar coins to increase potential circulation but already some banks have not bothered to order any of the coins featuring John Adams as they still have stocks of the George Washington.

The Susan B. Anthony dollar was introduced in 1979 but was easily confused with a quarter. The second attempt, the Sacagawea was introduced in 2000 and was slightly larger and thicker than a quarter. The new coins are to be the same size as the Sacagawea and will be able to be used in any vending machine that accepts the earlier dollar coin.

The hope is that the coin will be adopted by other organizations such as parking meter companies.

There are still doubts as to whether it will succeed as there are no plans to withdraw the $1 bill and both the $1 bill and the $1 coin will be in circulation at the same time.

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