On Wednesday, September 29, 2021, I decided to turn my every day transactions into public assets for the creative community to use. I did not use any cutting edge technological way to pay for things. Instead, I used the most ancient and enduring payment method: that of the cold, hard metal coin.
Specifically, I used the most ubiquitous and common kind of coin in my country – the U.S. quarter, worth $0.25 USD.
I washed my clothes at a laundromat.
It costs 10 quarters, or $2.50, for a load of wash in the machine. It is called a “double loader” machine, but it is actually the smallest sized washing machine in the laundromat. Larger capacity machines require more quarters.
Then I went shopping at the bargain grocer store to buy some yogurt for one dollar and some milk for $0.50, as well as some bread for $2.50.
Then I stopped back at my apartment to put away my groceries before walking back to the laundromat to dry my clothes. The dryer machine costs one quarter for every five minutes. I typically spend about six quarters, or $1.50, for 30 minutes. This time, I was so caught up in photographing my hand as I was putting quarters into the machine that I accidentally paid a full 7 quarters for 35 minutes.
The laundromat has a particularly beautiful accessory – a classic arcade game machine. There I played Mrs. Pacman.
With the exception of the groceries, which I could have purchased using many payment methods, all of these tasks required one very specific kind of currency – the American quarter dollar coin, worth $0.25 USD. No other kind of coin is accepted by the laundromat machines or the arcade game machines, neither are any card, app, or cryptocurrency payments possible.
So, here’s my tribute to this oldest kind of financial token, a real circular piece of metal (or multiple layers of different metals pressed together, as may be the case), cold and hard and honest.
It feels fun and retro cool to pay for things using quarters.
Here are a couple additional photos for this collection:
I am dedicating all the images that follow in this post to the public domain (using the Creative Commons public domain dedication tool), and I am posting them here on Hive Stock Images before doing anything else with them. Anyone may use them for any purpose.
To the extent possible under law,
strivenword
has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to
Coin payment collection: Paying for laundromat, arcade, and groceries with U.S. quarters.