The next award tonight, is for the country with the Most-Inconvenient-Coinage-System.
Although there was viscous competition for this title, the award goes to.........
THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA!!!!
*raucous applause from the Australian supporters*
I imagine that the people who designed the coins in Australia, all sat around in a room and asked themselves: "How can we create a coinage system that confuses foreigners and children, as well as weighing everyone's wallets down unnecessarily?".
I prefer this explanation, because then at least they were extremely successful, achieving all their aims (instead of just showing a serious lack of common sense...).
For those of you who are not familiar with the Australian system- there are 3 major grievances afflicting it.
Firstly, the 2 dollar coin is HALF the size of the 1 dollar coin. Why??? As I have lived here all my life, it doesn't seem strange, but it was just the other day when it struck me how WEIRD that is. Who decided on having the coin that is worth more, smaller?? I can imagine it being really confusing to tourists/immigrants! Although, this does have one upside. It provides every Australian child with the opportunity to double their funds by saying to a younger child: "Here, I'll swap you this giant coin, for that teensy one. Just 'cos I'm nice like that." >:)
Secondly, the Fifty cents coin is MASSIVE. Seriously gigantic. It even has fancy angular edges (that makes it a literal pain to sit on.). This is extremely annoying, especially as wallets/purses generally don't have a that large coin pocket in the first place. Carrying around a giant pieces of SHRAPNEL worth only 50c each is extremely vexatious (A Mrs Bennet moment, You have no compassion for my poor nerves!) .
And lastly, the smallest value coin is 5c. This doesn't stop retailers from having prices like: $1.47, $29.99, $2.86. Why? I know this isn't strictly a problem with the coinage system, and it doesn't cause much of an issue as most people pay by card. But it is still incredibly frustrating! (Who can be bothered to round? It feels too much like maths.)
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