Comments on: Standoff at the Subway

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:58:28 +0000

Rick–Now this is genius…I’ve been looking for an excuse to go to the race track or casino more often!

By: Rick

Rick — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 23:07:23 +0000

I read on a blog called Un Ano Sin Primavera, that one of the authors would go to the Hipodrome or a casino or something and get coins. It sounded like a good idea. Also, I met a guy from Paraguay who had some sort of bus pass. I’ve been saying that is the solution to the problem. I don’t know where he got it, but it was a card that is rechargable. Good luck! I walk!

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 02:43:56 +0000

Gustavo–Thanks for the tip.

I’ve never shopped at an Eki before…but if I can get change there, I’m going to seek one out!

By: Gustavo

Gustavo — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 02:37:35 +0000

I`m a local and I’ll tell you my common source for coins. It is Eki and Coto supermarkets. They have higher coins supply than than kioscos and small shops. Try to do your shopping there. In the first case, try to be friend of cashiers (they are a small crew and always the same) and help them with 20 or 30 cents for getting 1 peso or 50 c coins. If you see the cash register, you’ll see a lot of them.

By: Michele

Michele — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 01:25:57 +0000

We had read that banks are required by law to give monedas, but Tom has had intermittent luck, at best, trying to wrest the monedas from the bank and/or finding short lines!

100 pesos from Banco de la Ciudad–my gosh, that’s crazy!?! You could have resold it for a profit!

By: Barbara

Barbara — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 22:29:36 +0000

So take an hour one morning and go on a “moneda crawl” along Avenida Santa Fe or Las Heras, somewhere with a lot of banks. In some banks you take a numbered ticket and go upstairs to the cashiers. Other banks just have a single line for the cashiers. If the line looks short, get in line and ask for monedas. Sometimes I can get as much as 20 pesos in monedas from a single bank — Superveille and Banco de la Nación tend to be good, HSBC is not worth the hassle. Once I got 100 pesos worth from Banco de la Ciudad (in a sealed bag of a thousand 10-centavo coins — they lasted a long time!).

By law, banks are supposed to give monedas. Usually it’s 3-5 pesos at a time, but still, after visiting a few banks you have enough to last you for a while. And you can get 100-peso notes changed that way without worrying about getting counterfeit bills back.

By: Buenos Aires News: Edition 4 | Discover Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires News: Edition 4 | Discover Buenos Aires — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:45:34 +0000

[...] ways people are dealing with it. Michelle and Tom’s blog has their own interesting experiences with the Argentine coin shortage. Truly a strange problem to [...]

By: Michele

Michele — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:30:29 +0000

Technically, that was Tom complaining!! hee hee

By: Steve H

Steve H — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 02:09:05 +0000

OK, Reeves. You’re going to have to deal with your coin issue in some sort of proactive way. It sounds like there is a mania developing. Maybe we should bake some centavos or whatever they use into a plum pudding and ship it down to you? And quit complaining about riding the subway for free!