Do Coin Collectors Cause The Mint To Produce Additional Coin

The need for coins to serve commerce is dropping.
More and more people are using credit and debit cards.
Coins have no real purchasing power left.
Pennies, nickles and even a dime are routinely to be found in the "Leave a penny, take a penny" tray.

Think back to 1965:
Silver is removed from coins and the Mint churns out tons of the new coins.
"Those nasty coin collectors are hoarding coins - Let us produce mass quantities."
When in reality, vending machines were eating up those circulating coins.

Today, as more and more machines accept plastic, the need for coins to feed commerce is dwindling.
Where will it take us next?

No, I do not think that we coin collectors have a measurable impact on the Mint's output.
We are, and have always been, held to blame for circumstances beyond our control.
And although a few of us do not want to see the penny go the way of the Dodo, really, does
it make any sense at all to keep it? Well, OK, special "collector" sets, sold at outrageous prices,
aimed at the ill-informed and flipped at twice the price a week or two later after a six month wait
to receive it.
That is, until the market drops.

I do not play that game.
If a coin was not made to serve commerce, in my opinion, it is not worth collecting.

I agree with Senex. I do not believe coin roll hunting has any measureable impact on what the Mint produces. There are billions of nickels, pennies etc in circulation. The mint probably has some forumla they use to figure out how many coins they need to produce based on what goes through the Federal Reserve. If they see numbers dwindling in a certain coin denomination, they produce more that year to avoid a shortage situation.

The numbers of coins reaching the Federal Reserve drop for a number of reasons- from mutilation and melting (probably not much melted these days with the law against melting copper) to loss (like coins in fountains, lost on streets, playgrounds, rivers, streams), some left in piggy banks and accumulated for years to decades (probably more accumulation than people re-rolling and bring to bank or to Coinstar), and other reasons. A collector for roll hunting probably only holds the coins for a week or two and then end up back in the Federal Reserve eventually. So there is probably little impact on what the mint produces from collectors. There is much greater impact from everyone as a whole getting their change and sticking it in a piggy bank. The probably could go a year without minting anything at all if everyone would bring their coins back to the bank regularly.

I agree that more coin are held back from circulation by people putting then in piggy banks, drawers, coffee cans, etc. than by CRH.

Wow, Condor, thanks, you put math weight behind my suggestion that general public does far more to remove coins than collectors. That's a staggering number of coins removed every year.

Your number could be over-estimated due to so many people using plastic for transactions now, or under-estimated by cash driven transactions in which you get far more than 1 coin per week. I did all cash transactions this weekend and wound up with about 12 coins- all tossed in a piggy bank (checked first for dates!).

As Conder101 said people just do things with coins every day that ends their existance. Not to long ago there was a post about all the things people do with coins. So many are thown in Rivers, Lakes, Oceans, wishing wells, etc. So many are buried for fun, melted down by jewlers and/or just kids in chem classes. Those machines that press them into something for kids. Holes drilled in to make jewlery. Shot at with guns. Put away in jars, cans, boxes for a rainy day. Placed on RR tracks and on and on with almost anything.
Yes it is amazing that there are any left at all.

From my experience CRH nickels, I think there will still be enough 1964 nickels around for my grand children's grand children to collect them.

Coin collectors and roll hunters would have an almost negligible effect on the total public demand for new coin.

Far greater is the volume of coins hoarded is by most of the general punlic who are NOT coin collectors.

Although both groups (coin collectors AND the rest of the general public), both recirculate their coins,
what I have noticed is that almost every American household seems to do, as far as cash is concerned, is to pay in notes and receive coins in change. The coins are taken home to be accumulated in a large amount enough, finally be taken back to the bank to be credited to an account.

Probably has a lot to do with paying the exact amount in in change, allowing for State taxes at checkouts, which can vary from State to State.

I would pave my driveway with my half-full 55-gallon drum of 1964-D Nickels, but when their melt value hits 10 cents each, scavengers would get their picks and axes and I'd have no driveway left.