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 Replies: 26 / Views: 3,677 |
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New Member
United States
33 Posts |
conder you are right on. These days it is about quantity and not quality. The same thing apply's with cars, furniture,and many other products that are made with inferior materials. I shudder to think what coin collecting will look like in the future. I think it will be hard to find the grades especially in circulated rolls.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3692 Posts |
Conder, did you work at a mint previously? You have pretty in-depth insight over this process down to the "how can I hire less employees?" kind of thinking.
And, no, I don't think coins will be SO plain in the future. They still have to account for counterfeiters. The cheaper the materials are that are being used, the easier it will be to counterfeit. It seems like a child should be running things instead....
Edited by Libertad
12/18/2010 09:14 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2734 Posts |
Cu-Ni coins have already proven themselves to wear much less in circulation than silver coins.
Zinc Cents are another story. I think those actually cost the Mint
money in the long-term versus using 95% Copper Cents.
A Zinc planchet may cost half that of a 95% Copper planchet, but it
doesn't have even close to half the circulation life of a Copper Cent.
If they have to press five Zinc Cents to serve the circulation lifetime
of one Copper Cent, how is that saving metal costs?
Given the low face value and quick deterioration, why not set aside a few nice spotless BU Zincolns?
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
Quote:
future money will eventually take the form of a low relief "U.S.A." on the obverse, and "## Cents" on the back. No design, no reeding, no nothing ;-){/quote]
That may not be so far from the truth. Several foreign countries are already reaching that point
[quote]Zinc Cents are another story. I think those actually cost the Mint
money in the long-term versus using 95% Copper Cents.
A Zinc planchet may cost half that of a 95% Copper planchet, but it
doesn't have even close to half the circulation life of a Copper Cent.
If they have to press five Zinc Cents to serve the circulation lifetime
of one Copper Cent, how is that saving metal costs?
No they actually make MORE money for the mint when that happens. Back in 1982 the copper cent blank cost .8 cents, the zinc blank .4 cents. When they made a cent they made .2 cents on the copper and .6 cents on the zinc (I am ignoring production costs) Now say over the life span of the copper cent they have to keep replacing the Zinc cents that corrode away and they have to do that five times. Not on the books they still show a .2 cent profit on that copper cent, but on the zinc cent they show .6 X 5 or Three Cents profit. Why because the corroded zincs just get tossed and don't come back for redemption. Yes it costs the mint Two Cents in metal instead of .8 cents but the profit margin is much greater. |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
10045 Posts |
Quote:
Why because the corroded zincs just get tossed and don't come back for redemption. Here's a money-making idea...make all the cents from chocolate and none will be redeemed.  Seriously, though--if they didn't insist on plating the zincolns with copper, they would last much longer. They wouldn't be as shiny at first, but the copper wouldn't hasten their demise. Plating zinc coins with copper was a worse idea than the '43 steel cents. |
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Valued Member
United States
286 Posts |
all new money will be plastic cards? it could happen
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
1431 Posts |
Ah thanks for shedding some light on the subject, Conder.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2734 Posts |
Quote:
Conder101: ...the corroded zincs just get tossed and don't come back for redemption. And that explains why the Mint plays the zinc Cent game. Thanks, Conder101! Does the Mint keep redemption statistics?  It would be very interesting to compare Cent redemption from a pre-zinc year (ie. 1970, 1980) with any year after 1990 (where large quantities of zinc Cents were in circulation). The unattractive appearance (and low purchasing power) of corroded zinc Cents no doubt inspires the public to dispose of them in large numbers. Lucky for the Mint. All copper lovers reading this should band together and send all their nasty zinc Cents from roll hunting to the Philadelphia Mint...  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1126 Posts |
Debasing the coinage of the realm is the first step
to the collapse of the monetary system of any civilization.
Much more than 50% of the money in our monetary system
is in the form of electrons whizzing from bank account
to another. You can not much more debased than that.
That is why when creating this country the founding
fathers saw fit to make it law that money was to be
in the form of Gold and Silver ONLY. They remembered the
lessons from past fallen civilizations such as Rome.
Ahh but alas the people who are in charge have been allowed
to ignore these laws written down by the founders of this
country. With out trial for treason or even outrage from the
population that the bankers of this country now control
Edited by stewart
12/19/2010 1:26 pm
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
It may well be possibly that all previously noted explanations are not accurate. My theory is our government outsourced all our coinage to China not to long ago and they are now really made of recycled beer and pop cans. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2734 Posts |
Quote:
Much more than 50% of the money in our monetary system is in the
form of electrons whizzing from bank account to another. That's another thing. Silver is a great electrical conductor. And it's getting better. Look at how many more "electrons" have to be zipped into your account when you sell silver, compared to five or ten years ago...  Quote:
they are now really made of recycled beer and pop cans. They would last longer than zinc Cents, and spoil the Mint's profits from lack of redemptions...  Edited by DNA
12/19/2010 9:37 pm
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Valued Member
United States
57 Posts |
Thanks Condor101 for the very informative posts; learned a lot...
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3077 Posts |
i am actually saveing my "cancer zincs" think I will have enuff from roll searching to buy next years mint set
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Valued Member
United States
228 Posts |
Zinc cents turn to crud very quickly.... And when the government eventually gets around to allowing copper cents to be melted - the only cents circulating will be the 95% zincolns!
If you think it's hard to find a good MS63+ zincoln in circulation for the years 1983 through 1989 - just wait till they are the only cents circulating!
I think 10 years from now - BU zincs (especially the early ones) will be worth a lot more than most believe today!
But they're tough as nails to find in my experience 20 MS 60 - 62's for every MS 63 or 64 !
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4778 Posts |
And with newly minted zincs (like current year zincs), they're always either spotted, or scratched, or both. It's kind of annoying  |
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Replies: 26 / Views: 3,677 |
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Posted 12/18/2010 09:09 am
