85. Stable Currency

           

             It’s getting to be less and less necessary to have cash on hand if you want to buy something, so what I’m about to write about might date me. I like the fact that in the US if I have an old coin, say a wheat back penny, I can still spend it. (Though a wheat back penny would garner more value as a collectible item than the value of its coinage.) Once our cash is legal tender it remains such until it is removed from currency and that, in the case of coins, occurs most frequently by collectors wishing to preserve another era of Americana. Of course bills just wear out and are usually destroyed by banks though, of course, many of them are also retained by collectors.

            This legal tender aspect of our currency is not the same in other countries and I am often caught off guard in the UK when I return with cash from a few years back that is no longer acceptable for spending. Stores have sent me away to make cash trades at banks. I guess I can understand it in places like Germany and France where the Deutschmark and Franc have been replaced by the Euro but it isn’t something I would expect in Britain where the pound has been in existence for centuries. I guess the legal tender aspect of our currency makes me feel like maybe, in spite of our relative newness to the cast of nations, we might be one of the more stable countries. So there’s another little tid bit of Americana that most people don’t know, but I’m very thankful for it.