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How do you handle new (never used) bills? Any good tricks to keep them from sticking together?

Our ticket prices are $5 and $8. When the bargain show is over we give a lot of people $4 change for their $20 bills. Consequently we go through $1,000 to $1,500 one-dollar bills each week. Our bank has the irritating habit of giving us new bills from the Fed. Every Friday and Saturday morning you can find us in the cash room with a stack of new bills and a stack of old bills. We interleave the bills so they will be easier for our staff to distribute. I'll bet there is a machine that will shuffle bills for you. We already are on our second bill counting machine.

Yesterday I worked about 10 minutes of a rush in the box with a stack of new $1 bills. It really slowed me down. I think it is only a problem with the $1 bill. I have been given a new stack of $10s but it didn’t seem to be the same problem.

For almost the past two years now we have had no problem with ones sticking together, as we only use the new gold one dollar coins... NO paper ones at all in the box office. It has worked fine. A few people complain about them, but many more like them. The ones that don't like them, get rid of them at the refreshment stand. I don't mind a bit.

Our bank charges us a fee each time we go get change. It's called Analyze Checking and we get charged for everything and then get credit for the amount of the average balance. In short the amount we are charged for coin is much higher than the amount we are charged for paper bills. Therefore we buy $1s in paper instead of coin. When the new coin first came out we looked in to it because we thought it was cool, but I'm not doing it if it cost more. (Apparently coin weighs more and is therefore more costly ship and thus costs more than bills. Conversely a $1 bill lasts 18 months and a $1 coin has a projected lifespan of 10 years based on the Quarter.)

If the Fed wants us to use the coin, all they have to do is stop printing the bills. They don't have to make any grand announcements or proclamations, just stop printing the dollar bill. In two years you will be hard pressed to find one.

On another subject, I think they should abolish the penny in cash transactions. It's a waste of recourses.

Although I am an enthusiastic supporter of the new $1 coin, I an not that enthusiastic about going to the bank on Friday and picking up $500 box of Quarters and $1,000 in $1 coins. The box of Quarters is bad enough. I can fit $1,000 in $1 bills in my jacket pockets.

I haven't had holes in my pants pockets in years, but if the $1 coin caught on, I might.

The paper-one's dissapeared in Canada a decade ago, for the same reason, just didn't last. BUT, we did just as you suggest, stopped printing them altogether. There was vigourous protest at first, but quickly embraced, so much so that now our twos are coin as well (though I know your twos are gone altogether). That's something we Canucks find annoying when we visit, all those ones (or 1.50's??). You should bring back twos in coin form to ease that problem.

After damaging my finger, I would wear one of those finger cots (mini-condoms, if you will) so as not to cut-down snack bar sales with the viewing of my stitches. Oddly enough, the added traction made short work of new one dollar bills. There are finger rubbers (don't say it) available at most office supply stores for handling papers.

Avalon: I appreciate your situation but I am having a hard time imagining all 4 of us in a line wearing rubber fingers while we sell tickets AND serve concessions. Those new ones keep bouncing back at us! I have spent considerable time crumbling them up like trash and then uncrumbling them. We have also tried salt and interweaving them into used ones. Just hoping someone had a better idea.

Beckwith1: I found out not long ago that I have an alergic reaction to the ink in all our bills. Actually its a combination of the ink and the dirt and oils that get worked into the money, makes the ends of my fingers crack. So we use the dollar coins and don't have much of a problem. If people don't want them then we give them bills, but usually wer're alright with the coins.

Dave mentioned the 2 dollar bills. The U.S. 2 dollar bill is quite a novelty item, since you don't find that many in circulation on a regualr basis. Here's the exception:

My wife and I went to a drive-in theatre in Florida during the week of the U.D.I.T.O.A. (United Drive-In Theatre Owners Association) conference and were given change at the concession stand with.... 2 dollar bills.

The manager tells us he goes to the bank and orders as many as he can get. He said, "I was eating breakfast Saturday morning at a restuarant, and a guy at the next table is "showing off this 2 dollar bill he picked up last night at the drive-in", to which the other people at the table responded, "where is a drive-in around here?"

The 2 dollar bill did two things for the manager:
1.) It made the customer who recieved it remember where he got it.
2.) everyone at that table now knows there is a drive-in theatre within driving distance from there home.

When we open our theatre this summer, July 4th, 2002, or April of 2003 - rest assured there will be plenty of 2 dollar bills in the cash registers.

As I mentioned earlier we use gold dollars rather then paper dollars. I didn't mention that we also use half dollars since all our ticket prices end with 50 cents. Since our bank orders both halves and gold dollars just for us, thay ask me if I wanted two dollar bills as well. I was surprised that they were available. They told me I could have all that I would want, but they would have to order them special. I haven't done it yet, but I am thinking about using them for matinees as our matinee price is $1.50 and therefore all couples would total $3.00 making the "twos" the perfect change.

Can you imagine a patrons surprise who buys one matinee ticket for $1.50 with a $5.00 bill and then recieves change of a half dollar, a gold dollar and a two dollar bill.

I think I better ponder this one for a while longer.

[This message has been edited by RoxyVaudeville (edited March 11, 2002).]

The idea of using "odd" money for change so the patron remembers where they got it and may mention it to others is a good one!

Do most US banks keep a stock of 50-cent pieces, dollar coins (Susan-B's or gold) and two-dollar bills?
http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/golden_dollar_coin/index.cfm?action=timeline

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John, I think not. My bank actually orders change on a weekly basis, and they order the gold dollars just for me and the half dollars for me and the local hardware store. The armor unit that delivers coinage has told my banks head teller, who actually does the ordering, that they are the only bank they deliver to that orders gold dollars.

So if you want unusual coinage you need to ask your banker and they can order it for you.

I have been trying to sell the idea to our chamber of commerce that we should get all, or hopefully most, of our communities business' to use gold dollars as part of a town wide promotion that could bring a lot of national attention to us since we would be the only town in the nation using a large amount of those coins. We could use slogans such as " The community of golden opportunity", or "The Gold Buck stops here".
"Strike Gold in _________", "There's more Gold to be found in___________then anywhere else in the nation", and on and on.

The above mentioned slogans (good or bad)are hereby copyrighted by me and may not be used without written permission.

To get back to the original question. If you dampen the edges of the bills (we dampen all four sides of a stack of bills) the edges will separate and make the bills come apart much easier. Sponges, rags, or spray bottle work.

Haven't tried this yet, but how does it work in practice? I usually break up $100 packs of ones into $20 packs prior to needing them. Do I spray them when I make my packages up or do we wait until they are actually getting used at the box office? In other words, when they dry are they still difficult to separate?

Thanks for your input!