Thai Coins, Where Do They Vanish To?

[contemplating]

Just wondering, and trying to figure out why there is such a shortage of coins in Thailand. I have a minimart, and we are always out of coins, my neighbors are always out of coins, and yesterday, the bank was even out of coins. Seems that most of our customers only want to pay in bills, so by the evening, we are out of coins to give change. I thought I could go to the bank and get enough coins to last a week or so, but only got 100 baht.

Do Thai people just save the coins at home, and if they do, what do they do with them? My TGF hates it when I try to pay for something with the exact change. Maybe it looks like cheap charlie?

If someone has an idea why this shortage of coins, I would like to hear, but please dont tell me to go back to my own country, if I dont like it here! That seems to be the standard answer for every post.

[timekeeper]

mine goes into my pottery piggy bank, anything except 10 baht coins

when its full, the kids count it out, i take it to the bank and i put the proceeds in their bank accounts

usually makes about 3000 over 3 -4 months

[gotlost]

My wife takes mine, about two thousand a month

[Phuket Stan]

mine goes into my pottery piggy bank, anything except 10 baht coins

when its full, the kids count it out, i take it to the bank and i put the proceeds in their bank accounts

usually makes about 3000 over 3 -4 months

I do the same

[canuckamuck]

My wife loves to pay with coins, I leave them around in piles in the house so she can find little treasures.

yes it does sound silly, but she is quite happy to snatch them up.

[Who, me ?]

You can have mine, if you agree to pay them 10% more than the amount....

[anothertorres]

i throw all my change into a vase. then empty the vase into a ziploc, put it in the closet and proceed to refill the vase. i have bags of change, you want to buy them off me?

[angiud]

I put mine in a big bowl. When full, I bring to the local 7eleven and I take back a 4/5000 Baht.

[gotlost]

People in general do not like coins.

[Hardback]

I put mine in a big bowl. When full, I bring to the local 7eleven and I take back a 4/5000 Baht.

I had roughly the same amount in coins and the bank didn't want them when I took them there. I taped them into bundles of ten and took them to the local 7-11. I was apprehensive at first but they couldn't have been happier to receive them. Now I do it all the time and the message from them is "keep 'em coming".

So, to suggest an answer to the OP I would say that these coins are sitting around in people's homes and if the reaction I got from the bank is a common one it would suggest that it would prevent a lot of coins from re-entering circulation.

Edited August 27, 2010 by Hardback

[Familyonthemove]

I've been wondering what to do with the bags of coins I've accumulated in my place. I empty them from my pockets each night and only take notes with me in the morning. The bank was not impressed when I took them there - so now I'll try the local mini-mart.

[Farma]

I'm upcountry and we're always needing coins.

The provincial Governors building has a bank where we can buy as many coins as we want.It's not your usual commercial bank, more like a reserve bank. They also accept bags of coins if you need to empty your piggy bank.

There must be a place in Pattaya that does the same.

[BB1950]

So, to suggest an answer to the OP I would say that these coins are sitting around in people's homes and if the reaction I got from the bank is a common one it would suggest that it would prevent a lot of coins from re-entering circulation.

I would suspect there is some truth to this. I haven't seen many banks that have any coin processing equipment, such as scales or counters. Nor have I seen any coin packaging materials, such as coin tubes. For a bank, coins would be a real headache to process.

[Phil Conners]

I save them in a big jar too. The bank will take them with a grumble, but takes forever to count them up by hand. In Europe banks usually have a coin counting machine, takes a minute to count up a jar of coins.

[wandrinstar]

Mine jam up the Washing Machine:(

[soihok]

Most Thai coins emigrate at the slightest chance.

Always finding them in a handful of Singapore $ coins when at the shops.

They seem to knock about with Malaysian Ringits a lot too.

[PattayaParent]

I'm another that put's them in a pot so I guess a lot are taken out of circulation that way.

You need to befriend a local songthaew driver and collect his at the end of each day. Those guys must have thousands of them and what do they do with them?

[suiging]

10 satangs can be given to your non-Thai visiting pals for themselves or to be taken back for others to use as golf ball markers.

[happylarry]

27 August 2010 Last updated at 00:01 GMT

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Years of saved pocket change buys van in China

Extra staff were brought in to count the money

A man has paid for a van in China with 100,000 yuan ($14,700; £9,500) in pocket change he gathered over years, state television reports.Mr Zhao, a businessman, dropped bundles of notes, none worth more than one yuan - about $0.15 - at the dealership in Jining, in northern Shandong province.Extra staff had to be brought in to work shifts to count it all, a clerk at the dealership said.Mr Zhao received the notes from customers at his printing business.Finding a dealership to accept the notes, many of them stained and torn, was not easy, he said."I held onto the money waiting to see if they would accept it so that I could buy the car. The manager of this dealership decided to accept my cash, so that was really helpful to me," he said.After hours of counting, the staff at the dealership confirmed he had provided exact change."Our finance department originally had three or four people counting the money, but that was certainly not enough," said Chen Ying, a cashier with the dealership."So we added some colleagues from the sales department, they came in the morning and worked all day, and then we added another shift. We finally finished counting all of the money."

Considering this topic I thought this article on the BBC news today might be of interest.....Cant see anyone in Thailand accepting this though, can you????????????

[soundman]

Petroleum products!

If you need coins, go and change them at your local service station. For some reason, when the price of fuel is expensive (opposite occurs when fuel is cheap ), many customers use coins to pay for their petrol.

We currently collect over 20,000B per week in coins at our service station.

[Jingthing]

I use mine for the baht buses so I never have too many of them. Its especially fun to hand the drivers a handful of 1 baht coins.

Edited August 27, 2010 by Jingthing

[krading]

The missus loses mine playing rummy with her sisters.

[DMC1]

Keep all ours in a tin and use them to pay the water delivery bloke..

[CGW]

Like others I throw all mine in a bowl, wooden in my case, been throwing them in for over ten years, can barely pick the bowl up now, would have to be pretty bored or skint to start counting them!

[raro]

I use them to pay the Motorway toll. Small denominations (25, 50 Satang and 1 Baht) I collect in a small box until they reach 30 Baht - the amount to pay at the toll booth.

[Rimmer]

I use them to pay the Motorway toll. Small denominations (25, 50 Satang and 1 Baht) I collect in a small box until they reach 30 Baht - the amount to pay at the toll booth.

So what is the going rate at toll at the basjke exit these days

[raro]

I use them to pay the Motorway toll. Small denominations (25, 50 Satang and 1 Baht) I collect in a small box until they reach 30 Baht - the amount to pay at the toll booth.

So what is the going rate at toll at the basjke exit these days

Some stories spread fast these days, don't they....

[Theo007]

My partner stores in a bottles and is too shy to take them anywhere to change1 We are running out of space to store them all.

[BecTero1]

Perhaps a sinister country (Pama) might be importing the coins to be melted down to make thier own crappy coins!

[nikkoid66]

I give mine to a very old woman who sells flowers on Walking street.