The best part about this is, in small numbers, foreign currency just becomes domestic currency on the basis of similar appearance alone. You get a Canadian penny, you may not even notice, and even if you do, you don't care because the next guy won't either.
The laundry/vending machines are an interesting case because there's a decent chance that the the vendors would just be taking bags of coins to the bank where, presumably, the Pesos would be kicked out correctly. Even then, if there were only a small number of pesos, they probably just passed them on at someone else's vending machine, or in other cash person-to-person transactions.
It's hilarious to me that, while you can argue about what currencies are backed by, at the end of the day all that matters is that something spends. If something spends like a quarter, it's a quarter.
I was visiting Italy as a kid in the mid 90's. My dad would get pay phone token coins in the change, and apparently they were widely used interchangeably with the official coins.
The laundry/vending machines are an interesting case because there's a decent chance that the the vendors would just be taking bags of coins to the bank where, presumably, the Pesos would be kicked out correctly. Even then, if there were only a small number of pesos, they probably just passed them on at someone else's vending machine, or in other cash person-to-person transactions.
It's hilarious to me that, while you can argue about what currencies are backed by, at the end of the day all that matters is that something spends. If something spends like a quarter, it's a quarter.