Canada May Ditch The 1 Cent Coin.

heathens

and thats all I got to say about that

Directed @ bibd (or anyone else who can answer)

Are they necessarily going to demonetize it or just stop making/circulating them?

If they were to officially going to stop circulating pennies my plan was to get a few boxes worth, go through them for my collection, and either return the rest as soon as possible or just keep them.

I didn't think keeping them was a big deal because I figured they'd always be worth at least one cent and I could always send them back if I had to. However, now I'm not so sure. Can you clarify this for me?

As long as the penny is legal tender and part of the Canadian monetary system I will collect them. Once they officially demonetize it, I believe the mint can no longer make them. The 50 cent piece has not been demonetized, and it was a simple business decision on the part of the mint not to spend money of putting them into circulation. Since it is still legal tender, I will still seek one out for each year.

Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, and related objects. By definition alone I see no reason why someone would not have an interest in collecting the numerous overpriced souvenirs that the mint produces. I personally have a few of the interesting commemorative 'coins' (like the wedding quarter for the year I was married), but I have no interest in most of them. To each their own I say.

No worries Karrlot - typical RCM/NCLT bashing. A handful of individuals who just can't tolerate - or as one famous actor once said "can't handle the truth" about people actually collecting something else other than pocket change.

I guess that rules out PL sets, SP and Proof coins, patterns, silver dollars post silver era, etc..... To a certain extent, that would rule out first day strikes, RCM rolls, or special edition UNC sets of circulating coins - or anything that comes out of the Mint that is individually wrapped. Not sure about the nickel 50 cents - this may not be considered to be real collectibles anymore. Same goes for the nickel dollars... since they hardly circulated. But they may be OK. Some also think that varieties and mint errors are a joke...

Oh well...

Next is the penny.

But see, the cents WOULD make sense if they were worth more. It's not a good idea to take them out of circulation. The tool or means to make change already exists.

A radical idea: electronic poker chips whose value fluctuate daily. That way they keep chips in circulation but they get spent because they rise in value - the tool isn't value in itself, it's only that - a tool. The same goes with money instruments.

This is sort of my idea with how money is just being taken from the poor - that's what's happening. Do you think wealthy people bother to look at pennies? Or banknotes for that matter? This is straight robbing from the poor and giving to the rich.

Think about this. Pennies won't be given out as change. They will, however, be taken in multiples of 5 or 10. The money supply is being physically shorted 5X. Things will cost more and you'll have to turn to your last cents to buy bread. Am I off base? Pennies were engineered to be repulsive. The dollar will be fractioned into 1/20 and not 1/100. Which is fine by me, but get real about it, and rename cents entirely. Call them "vingts" or "twentieths" now.

I'm asking why a sensible person would do this to the poor?

I heard this weekend of someone who is hoarding all pre-1997 pennies solely for what they are worth in copper content. I may be relatively new to coins but isn't this a bit pointless because it would be illegal to melt them down for use as copper anyway? Then I got thinking about the fact that Canada may be ditching the penny and I began wondering if that's what the guy is waiting for? If the penny were demonetized would it then become legal to do this?

Interesting discussion. A lot of what I read here I agree with. I see hhbkiddo's point, and I feel the same way about collecting only circulation coins. I also collect only circulation coins, since to me it defeats the purpose of collecting to buy coins that were produced solely for the purpose of selling to collectors. (Especially with the volume of these collector sets that are produced nowadays!) But on the other hand I don't really care if some collectors buy the non-circulation coins. And if there is a market for it, I don't have a problem with the mint making some extra revenue. Whether you realize it or not, we all pay for the mint's operating costs with our tax dollars. So any revenue they can generate to help their bottom line means less taxes (at the expense of those buying the special collections, who are getting something that they value in return for their money). It's a win-win as far as I'm concerned.

As for the penny, I agree that its time has long passed. I will be sad to see it go from a collecting standpoint (no more roll searching!), but its usefulness ended years ago. I also entertained the thought of abolishing the nickel as well, from a practicality standpoint, although this would almost necessitate getting rid of the dime too, which to me seems a bit excessive. And while I like the idea of introducing a 20-cent coin, I think that has a snowball's chance in heck of happening.

I've seen and heard a lot of comments from people who don't know any better (not here or other coin forums obviously, but on news sites) about how the proposed swedish rounding system will be a chance for retailers to hose consumers. It's amusing to read some of the comments, which make it clear that some people just don't understand how it works. They're missing some important facts: 1) rounding will only occur on cash transactions - debit and credit will still charge to the cent. 2) rounding will only occur on the final transaction total after taxes, not on individual items, which means the discrepancy cannot exceed 2 cents on a single transaction. 3) totals ending in 1 and 2 will be rounded down, and totals ending in 3 and 4 will be rounded up. Thus the rounding will average out in the long run, favoring neither the retailer nor the consumer.

Of course this is all assuming that the senate's recommendations are adopted, which I think is fairly likely. Swedish rounding is a system that has already been adopted in several other countries and has worked quite well.

As for those of you who will mourn demise of the penny, you don't have to worry just yet... I read in the latest edition of CCN that it will take a couple years at least to completely eliminate the penny.

kniceone,

I wasn't aware that parking meters could take pennies!

That's one reason to keep the penny.