NEW $1 COIN STAYS IN DOLLAR BILL'S SHADOW

Americans aren't taking to the new dollar coin as well as U.S. Mint officials had hoped.

After an initial run on the coin, which bears the image of Lewis and Clark guide Sacagawea on one side and an eagle on the other, interest is nearly dead.

Area bank tellers report they seldom get a request for dollar coins. The vast majority of vending machines aren't set up to accept them.

About the only place in Cape Girardeau where the coins are in use is the post office, which dispenses them as change in the stamp machines. Many of those coins are plunked back into the same machines later.

Of course, they're good as regular currency everywhere. And, after an initial confused stare, workers at fast-food restaurants, convenience stores and other businesses will quietly put them in the cash drawer. Some dollar coin users report seeing those workers exchange dollars from their own pockets for the coins so they can keep them.

But most local folks only have a passing interest in the Sacagawea dollar, piqued late last year when a Procter & Gamble employee got one in change at the company cafeteria and discovered it had a flaw that made it worth more than $30,000.

The situation here is the same as the rest of the nation. The coin made its debut a year ago, and most Americans haven't even held one in their hands. Bank officials call it a chicken-and-egg problem: Consumers say they'll use them if they get them, and bank officials say they'll only give them out if consumers want them.

The fact Americans aren't clamoring for the coins isn't surprising. For some reason, we have an aversion to carrying change, and the dollar coin is the largest, heaviest coin in circulation. People put change in car ashtrays, in big jugs on the dresser and in children's piggy banks, but seldom do they want to carry it around.

However, coins are good for the U.S. Mint. Dollars wear out relatively quickly and must be exchanged repeatedly, whereas coins last and last. It isn't unusual, for example, to find a penny from the 1960s still in circulation.

But if the federal government wants people to use the Sacagawea dollar, officials will have to take a page from Canada's book. When Canada introduced its dollar coin, known as the Loonie, it began phasing out the paper equivalent.

Likewise, the U.S. will have to make a commitment to either the coin or the bill.