Another Attempt To Get Rid Of The Cent And Nickel In The USA

Shadz: Banknotes are printed every year. Every day of every month, if my information is correct. The series of the notes depends on the Treasurer of the United States, the Secretary of the Treasury, and whether a redesign is issued. It's all a little complicated, but needless to say that whenever one of those things happens, you either get a new series year, a letter appended to the series (i.e., 2003 A), or in the odd case of the 2006 $5 redesign in which case it stated series 2006, although the redesign was issued in 2008. (If anyone can provide insight for that oddity, it'd be greatly appreciated).

As to eliminating the one cent coin: NOOOOOO! I am deeply opposed to it. But, I will admit that is mainly due to my position as a coin collector.

As to the 5 cent coin, same reason, but that's reason #2. Reason #1 is bigger, and I'm not really surprised that our incompetent congress (and Obama in the OP's link) cannot figure out: The lowest valued coin must be a multiple of every higher denomination....or something like that. If we eliminate the nickel, then how do you make change for a quarter? That should be obvious to everyone. But there is no mention of it. Let's just let them discontinue both coins and see the crazy hell-storm of confusion that would follow. (Can I use mild profanity like that here?)

The only thing they could do at that point is to also eliminate the quarter dollar, and replace it with a Twenty Cent Piece again. However, that would be problematic in that you'd be eliminating now 3 coins and introducing a fourth, requiring everyone to turn them in, while having a new (probably nickel-clad) coin in the mix which would just confuse people (think Anthony Dollar).

Changes would need to be slow. Give the herd that is America time to process the changes before doing anything crazy...or just do something even more crazy and who cares! My dream: Redenomination. 100 old dollars = 1 new dollar. Go back to copper, silver, and gold coins (the 5 cent piece could probably remain untouched). Demonitize all post 65 dimes and quarters, all post 82 cents (since it'd be very hard to determine which 82's are copper and which are zinc quickly), and all halves post 71 (halves between 65 and 70 would be worth 22 new cents, based on metal). 5 cent pieces would remain worth 5 cents. Banknotes would be demonitized entirely.

PERKS: Since it'd require EVERYONE to turn in their old money by a specified date, drug lords and terrorists and the like in America and elsewhere would have a hard time doing it, the same with millionaires and billionaires with money in off shore accounts; especially if the law was written that everyone needed to present the actual banknotes/coins to US banks for redemption, instead of digital transfers. So, crime lords loose out, the 1% stand to loose out, the 99% would stand to make more money than they started out with (if they had hoards of old coins/nickels). The system of corruption would be partially re-balanced.

---There'd just be the issue of the massive 17 trillion deficit and massive entitlement drains.

Oh well...one can dream, can't they?

Businesses don't deposit cents because they don't get that many back from customers. They have to keep getting cents from the bank. They hand them out in change and then have to get more from the bank because they don't get anywhere near enough back in order to be able to keep handing them out.

The other thread got me thinking and looking at other countries and calculating....

1 pound worth of copper right this minute is about $3.03
1 pound of aluminum right this minute is about 77 cents.

not taking into account (because I do not know it) the cost to turn both into coin shapes of the same size:

19.05 mm wide x 1.52 mm thick

387, 1.17 gram coins could be made with 1 pound of aluminum for 77 cents worth of aluminum.

116, 2.5 gram coins could be made with 1 pound of copper for $3.03 worth of copper.

Why are we using copper+ to make cents when aluminum costs less and you can get more out of the same weight amount? you can get 3 times as many aluminum cents for one third the cost of raw materials. that would mean material costs would be 1/9th. Wouldnt that cut some of the cost of cents?

"Canada got rid of there cents.", so lets follow them?

"Dozen or more other countries have started using copper." Why are we not following the thing that has worked longer for more people? Why follow Canada?

Just needed some place to put my math, and thought this thread a good place to share the thoughts for any that care about that sort of thing. Maybe someone else that knows more about production costs could finish the equation to see how much if any would be saved making aluminum alloy cents in the US over copper ones.

Anyone got the cost of copper and zinc per 2011 so we can see what the percentage of the cost is for the metal?

Or is the cost listed just for production and NOT for the metal itself?

0.0019896 is the cost per metal per all aluminum cent as above
0.0261206 is the cost per metal per all copper cent as above

So it looks like unless prices of copper and aluminum have skyrocketed that price the Mint lists for production is JUST for the metal itself (copper+zinc)

Again math isn't working out for we are lacking information...

material costs
manufacturing costs
personnel costs

If the 2011 report is only for the metal costs itself, the you could make 5 aluminum cents for 1 cent, which would mean you could make 25 aluminum cents for about the same $0.05 it takes to make 2 zincolns.

its seems the everyone moans with the mint having production cost more than face value on the cent and nickel. I don't know why the mint doesn't start to extend the use of the dies and use them for as long as possible. Its like every cent and nickel has to be top notch condition. I have never seen any poorly struck ones anymore and I could imagine a lot worse condition like the nickels in the 80's. I bet the mint could use the dies until they broke or at least they are severely mushed down. Even dollar bills and paper money in general. I think the Fed could push bills a lot farther in circulation than they do. I hardly ever see any poor condition paper money where as they need to be taped together. This could cut down on the overall costs but someone would take a hit like the die makers and Crane paper Co.

Like Jbuck said, the dies are pushed further by using low relief. Compare the relief of current circulation coinage to that of coins of 40, 60 80 years ago and you will see. Nickels appear to be the worst IMHO, the obverse relief is almost nonexistent these days. This is due to the mint numbers, they make exponentially more coins each year than they did in prior years because of the lack of recirculation.

That's also the reason you don't see a lot of worn coins these days; coins just do not circulate like they used to.

They go from the mint to the bank, then to the store, used as change once and end up in a jar for a year or so and then cashed in back at the bank or a CoinStar. They then go through the same cycle and a year or so later get used a second time. Back when coins actually had real purchasing power they would get used over and over and over and over and have the wear to prove it.

Paper money is a different story. It gets used over and over and when it starts showing wear and tear (or tears) it is sent back for shredding. The bank gets full credit for bills it sends back for destruction. This explains why it is common for new bill styles to take over almost overnight. It is unusual to see bills in circulation with Series dates over 10 years old.

Due to the higher value of paper bills collecting older bills is seen less; who is gonna stick a 1990's $100 bill in a book just because it is relatively old?

Give it a few more decades since it took until 2014 from when FRD and JFK started working on health care reform. Then they will alter the dime which features FDR to commemorate the event and make it the size of a current cent and make the cent the size of a current dime, then take another century to figure out how to make electronic money work like in Demolition Man, or abolish it like in Star Trek. But when it happens be sure to have extra $1 bills on hand in case you cannot figure out how the 3 sea shells work.