Concern For The Long Run Future Of Our Zincoln Collections.

Things like that can discourage a seasoned collector .

What? You do not already live in a bomb shelter? I thought that was a given!


Yup. The time to kill off the cent was nearly forty years ago.

Cryo? Don't think we'll be worrying about it 200 years from now

I have lost some of my resistance to the cynicism that Zincolns seem to generate.

The U.S. Mint could solve all of these storage problems
by the issuing into circulation of injection molded plastic One Cent coins.
Legalized play money.

Not that much of a big deal. The quality of the 'paper' money issue in Australia improved with the issue of plastic banknotes.

That will never work because it would still cost more than one cent to make the cent. This is true even if somehow the material were free. Manufacture and handling costs already exceed one cent per unit. Just killed the darn thing already and be done with it. Then we can get NIFC bronze cents for the collectors. We know how to take care of those.

I used to work with plastic injection molding (plastic-town, USA - Erie, PA). Have costs really gone that high that it would take 1 cent to make something this small? You would be amazed at what it used to NOT cost to make plastic items en masse (even things like quality "Tupperware" type items). It was all the middlemen and markups that made the costs what they were.

And although sentimentally I hate the idea, I agree with jbuck. Kill it. I would rather see the cent killed than have the self-anihilating ones we now have anyway.

Of course I would prefer a return to PMs and/or a shift in the values of our money to adjust so a penny is worth something. But the latter is just kicking the can down the road. The former is never going to happen b/c the Fed won't let go of its ultimate power over the economy.

Yes, I just figured if the US mint put the money into getting their own rigs it could be done easily. Those bags of coins being sold, as you said, had middlemen all over the place - the packaging, the labels, etc. Direct from the factory/mint these costs would not be there. Molded plastics are actually very inexpensive to make as far as the actual cost of raw materials after the press and mold are paid off. I still have a thick plastic coffee mug I pressed when changing the colors on that machine. I think it was literally .012-.015 of a cent to make (80s though)and has a lot more mass than a cent would.

I don't recommend albums for long-term storage, especially for Zincolns. I expect mine to last virtually forever with my storage procedure:

1) Rinse with acetone (allow to evaporate)
2) Insert into an Air-Tite brand holder
3) Air-Tite goes into a quarter size 2x2
4) 2x2 goes into 3-ring type binder pages
5) Pages go into a ziplock with a sacrificial red cent
6) Ziplock goes into a Tupperware container
7) Tupperware either goes to my bank box (if particularly valuable) or into a giant plastic container with a lid.