Satang. Is There Any Point To Them

[leisurely]

I was just mooching through the girls dressing up box and found a bag with around 30 little satangs in, one of them has obviously been scratting round and collected them. Not sure what for...................but this got me thinking. What is the purpose of them? I have never seen anything for sale for 50 or 25 satang. They are a bit of an anachronism nowadays. Or am I missing a point somewhere?

[pampal]

The only place I have found satangs to be useful is in the buses. Specially the smaller green buses or mini buses that ply the Charoen Krung and Chinatown areas.

The fare for those buses is 6.50 Baht so the satang could be used there. Other than that I don't where they can be used.

[astral]

Firstly you have the name wrong.

The coins you refer to are 1 salung (25 satang) or 2 salung (50 satang).

They are part of the Thai monetry system where 1 baht is divided in to 100 satang.

You will find items in the supermarket priced to the 25st unit.

I understand that 1, 5 and 10 satang coins exist and are used by banks where they need to

balance the books exactly.

Edited December 14, 2006 by astral

[PhilHarries]

Only place I ever got them was Foodland or Big C and nobody would take them. The missus used to sling them in a pot and once in a while take them up the local wat.

Daftest one was the local shop at the corner of my estate. Went there one day to buy some eggs and there was only five left in the tray. OK I thought, I'll only have five then. Oh no, major problem, they had to scurry off out back and get me a sixth egg. Why? Well the eggs were so many Baht (can't remember) and fifty satang. The store didn't deal in satang so eggs had to be bought in even quantities and they wouldn't just round the price up even for a farang.

[November Rain]

I can't stand the things. I run a non- profit org (dog rescue) & we get them in our collection boxes all the time. Problem is, no-one will take them or change them for us. Banks won't take them without us paying for the privilege, market stall holders & shops who will happily take the other coins won't touch them, so we're left with a load of little brass coins that we can do nothing with.

[Scott]

I thought I was the only one who hated those things. I had a bank and I put them in it. After a long time, I took them to a bank, but the bank said they wouldn't take them, unless they were all counted out. I counted them out and bundled them up in "rolls"--I don't remember how many in a roll, but it was a logical number. I took them to another bank and they wouldn't take them counted out--they said they had to weigh them!! Which meant I had to try to get them unrolled and untaped.

I left with all my little coins and had them at work. Someone stole the things--thank God!

I put more money and effort into saving, rapping, rolling, unrolling, taping, untaping those coins. Oh and by the way, it was around 150 baht worth of them!

I bet I spent over 500 baht running around trying to cash them in.

[The Dan Sai Kid]

My Mum and Dad have a shop in the UK and one of the dim staff took a 50 satang coin - mistaking it for a 5 pence coin!

[taxexile]

this might sound like one of the "top tips" from viz magazine but....

glue 'em together in stacks of 20 or so.

they make handy little paperweights that stop papers on my desk from blowing about in the breeze from fans.

[rak sa_ngop]

O'Reilleys in Silom Road give you a bill in Baht + satang but will not accept satangs but just round up the bill. E.g a bill for 160.50 baht will get you 39 baht change from 200 baht. Used to bother me that they always gave me 19 baht in shiney new coins from the bank but would not round down the price and give me 2 * 20 baht notes.

Anyway now I always tip them with 19 baht in shiney new coins.

[Heng]

I have a 'grand' collection of about 1/2 cup of each. About the same in 1-5-and 10 Baht coins as well. They don't stockpile at my place after I started this 'paying with exact change' habit several years ago. I just take out 9 one Baht coins and 75 satang out on grocery days or arm the maid with the same if she's doing a grocery run. I don't worry about the 5's and 10's because the expressways + motorway eats those up.

Fortunately, I'm a rocket scientist so the above solution only took a few years of research to come up with.

[The Dan Sai Kid]

I think I will save mine to tip table staff.

[MiG16]

use them at supermarkets...atleast the ones in bangkok will accept them. ive used this more than once. not sure about up country. also sometime i give them 3-5 coins of 50satang instead of 1bahts and 50 satang a bit sly I know..but they dont seem to complain just give a nice smile and sometime i say something like can i give you some of that in coins..and they are happy to get them

[baabaabobo]

TOPS supermarket (in Phuket) .not only take them (exchange them for baht) but give you a gift as well.

I got a nifty sandwhich box. Go to the customer services counter

[popshirt]

If we know we will be passing a temple, we scavenge the house for cached satangs and drop them in the collection box there.

[The Coder]

7/11 does not deal with them and that to me really proves their divisibility just isn't needed anymore. The supermarkets could round everything to the nearest baht and no one would notice. I figure they do it so it looks "western" like in the US people advertise $1.99 and Thai's like to mimic the dot xx thing. I would imagine there would be a tremendous savings to the govt and some to the private sector by eliminating them, but instead they invent yet another coin, the 2 baht coin which seems completely useless and gets confused with the 5 .

[libya 115]

I was just mooching through the girls dressing up box and found a bag with around 30 little satangs in, one of them has obviously been scratting round and collected them. Not sure what for...................but this got me thinking. What is the purpose of them? I have never seen anything for sale for 50 or 25 satang. They are a bit of an anachronism nowadays. Or am I missing a point somewhere?

Just for the fun of it, try paying a Baht Bus driver a ten baht fare with 20 '50 satang' coins, let me know how you get on and which hospital you are staying in.

I'll bring the grapes!

[VanZam]

Even the Thais don't like them... Where do you think all those fake gold rings come from?

[Don Quixote]

I always thought it was simply because of adding tax or some other charge calculated as a percentage at the point of payment.

Edited December 14, 2006 by Don Quixote

[DFCarlson]

7/11 does not deal with them and that to me really proves their divisibility just isn't needed anymore. The supermarkets could round everything to the nearest baht and no one would notice. I figure they do it so it looks "western" like in the US people advertise $1.99 and Thai's like to mimic the dot xx thing. I would imagine there would be a tremendous savings to the govt and some to the private sector by eliminating them, but instead they invent yet another coin, the 2 baht coin which seems completely useless and gets confused with the 5 .

I always try to pay for stuff with exact change if I have it. I've found that it's not that common to get a bill with a fractional baht amount, but I did pay for some items in one 7-11 in Phayao a couple of months ago, and gave them the exact change including a 25 satang coin. No problem. In our local 7-11 in Chiang Kham I do get a satang coin in change once in a blue moon.

I'm not trying to be argumentative but just to point out that I think in Thailand there are no general rules about things like this. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. For me, I just go with the flow.

There's parallel argument in the US in favor of eliminating the penny!

Edited December 14, 2006 by DFCarlson

[bkkmei]

I use them in Villa, Carrefour, 7-11 - basically the places that give them to me in the first place. My husband throws them away!

[tropo]

I use them in Villa, Carrefour, 7-11 - basically the places that give them to me in the first place. My husband throws them away!

Do they use them at 7-11? I don't think they do as all items are in rounded baht.

I keep them in my pocket and give them back to any place that gives them to me.

[BambinA]

I can't stand the things. I run a non- profit org (dog rescue) & we get them in our collection boxes all the time. Problem is, no-one will take them or change them for us. Banks won't take them without us paying for the privilege, market stall holders & shops who will happily take the other coins won't touch them, so we're left with a load of little brass coins that we can do nothing with.

when i was 20 yo, my dad(a banker manager) asked me a favour for changing few hundreds thousand satangs to be bills

I went to The Treasury Department at Saphan Kwai Rd, . The clerk there told me to go to the office in Wat Pra Keaw (The Temple of Emerald Buddha).. I got plenty bucks ... Obviously it was not fun for counting stangs.

Anyway you'd better try to contact em and ask for a favour how to deal with satangs

http://www.treasury.go.th/indexeng/home_eng.html

[britmaveric]

use them for tip fodder let the satang be someone else's problem!!!

[Tony Clifton]

Seen that I can't use them to buy anything at the hardware store, if they're really made of brass, they'll make great rust-free washers for my next project.

[cnmltd]

My wife collects them and just about any 7/11 will count and change them.

[kmart]

this might sound like one of the "top tips" from viz magazine but....

glue 'em together in stacks of 20 or so.

they make handy little paperweights that stop papers on my desk from blowing about in the breeze from fans.

I keep a pile of them in the car door panel pocket. When some nimrod gets too close to me, I flick a few out of the window.