So it seems the U.S. Mint is getting ready to release yet another dollar coin to the public. This one will eventually feature all of the Presidents (who are no longer living) released in sets of 4 every year, starting of course with George Washington and the three who followed him (Adams, Jefferson, and Madison).

So why will this one succeed where all the other dollar coins have failed? Well it has a couple of things in its favor:

First, they are the exact same size and weight (and made of the same material) as the Sacagawea dollar coin of a few years back. This means many machines accross the country will accept it already.

Second, by taking a page from the successful series of State quarters and releasing the coins in sets of 4, each of which are different, they are creating a demand among collectors and an interest among the general public each time a new one comes out.

Now, these two thing certainly don’t guarantee success or acceptance of the coin, after all coins are pretty annoying to carry around in large quantities, but here are some more ideas that the government should consider if they are serious about getting the public to use them.

They could work with the soda manufacturers to set the price of a vending machine pop to $1. Currently it seems like vending machine drinks range anywhere in price from 50 cents to $1.50…why not split the difference and make them all $1? Imagine how simple it would be if you didn’t need to fumble around in your pocket for change to buy a pop in the machine, or better still, if you didn’t have to keep feeding those awful dollar-bill readers that just won’t accept your crumpled paper money. All you would need to do is insert your dollar coin and out comes the drink.

Of course in conjunction with this you would need to make sure that all vending machines are updated to accept the dollar coins. Though the Sacagawea coin has been out for a few years, I’ve only seen a few vending machines that will take them.

Another idea could be for bus/subway fares and road tolls. If these were made to be in increments of $1, that too would make the coins much more desirable as a form of currency.

I think the government is failing to realize that even though the coins could save them money in the long run (since they would have to re-print less bills), the public doesn’t see any point in using them when the dollar bill is not only lighter and easier to carry around, but is much more widely accepted.

The collectors angle is a good approach, but until you create some reason for the coins to become commonplace in the market (such as vending machines and tolls set to increments of $1), the bills will prevail.

Plus I think these new ideas are needed since George Washington looks pretty scary on the face of the new coin…and the others arguably look worse. Check out John “Babyface” Adams, Thomas “Unibrow” Jefferson, and James “Eddie Munster” Madison.