New Bipartisan Bill Would Let The US Mint Alter The Metal Content Of Coins To Save Money

They are probably going to spend $250 million to save 12. At this point what difference does it matter? Coins will be obsolete before they figure out a compromise to make any changes.

What they should do:
Get rid of the penny, nickel and quarter, change the dime, half and dollar to plated steel and reduce the size/weight of the half and dollar coins. The half can be slightly smaller than the current quarter and the dollar slightly larger. Each of the 3 remaining coins can have different edges (Plain, reeded, scalloped) Then eliminate the $1 and $2 bills.

As for designs make half the dimes Lincoln and the other half Roosevelt, half the halves Kennedy and the other half Jefferson. Make half the dollar coins with Washington and the other half with the Native American program, the Washington's can continue to have the changing reverse designs. They could do it by mint marks, in even years the Philly designs are Roosevelt, Kennedy and Washington with Denver Lincoln, Jefferson and N.A. with SF making Mint and Proofs with both designs.

Instead of kow-towing to the coin machine lobby just let them know what is going to happen and let them adapt.

We can round off purchases to the nearest dime for the ever decreasing cash purchases.

What is really going to happen:
They are going to spend a quarter billion dollars to determine that 80/20 is the way to go to save a few million and continue to waste resources on unnecessary pennies and nickels. By the time any changes are made it really won't matter.

Silly article by "yahoo". Notice how many times saving taxpayers money is mentioned. Really? Our taxes don't come close to paying for anything but interest on loaned FRN's. The FR Dollar is dying due to crime and fraud - protect yourself... and hopefully America will be restored and coinage will go back to being worth something. CBDC yeah okay. Think about that - not yours. Coin Collectors appreciate the real value if commodities I know. A gimmik is just that, real is real hence BRICS denouncing the FRN.

That is never going to happen.

Conder101.

And let us not forget the millions of gallons of diesel burnt hauling around the essentially worthless slugs and - not to mention pollution. The ultimate cost from mint to consumer hands brings the cost MUCH higher in terms of handling, transport and the environment.

What amazes me is the left is not screaming to get rid of small coins. Instead they make the false claim that "it will hurt the poor". And the right wants to keep coinage around to support their buddies in business. Government sucks, best to live in the woods somewhere and ignore the noise. LOL

I'd like to round any total over $1 to the nearest quarter, except rounding is mucked up by arcane state laws. For example, New Jersey requires sellers to round to the nearest cent when calculating sales tax, per their site https://www.state.nj.us/treasury/ta...thetax.shtml It seems reasonable to me for a seller to round and pay any sales tax difference out of his pocket, except you know someone will challenge that in court, and the outdated laws will support them.

Did you get a chance to read the prior summary I put earlier in the thread that one of the potential metallic alternatives is ready for implementation just pending congressional authorization to do so? To add some more info not in there, the alternative is referenced as 80/20. The alternative is a seamless variant to the present 75 percent copper, 25 percent nickel alloy used for the 5-cent coin and as the cladding for the dime, quarter dollar, and the Kennedy half dollar, but the 80/20 uses more copper, less nickel and adds manganese. The 80/20 composition is actually 77 percent copper, 20 percent nickel and 3 percent manganese from what I read as some might want to know. Seamless means substitutions that would require little or no modification to coin-accepting equipment. So hope that is helpful info.

And unfortunately they found nothing apparently that would lower the cost of the cent. @Hondo, U.S. Mint researchers identified a copper-plated steel cent as an alternative to the copper-plated zinc cent. The option would be seamless, with the same dimensions and weight as the current cent, but a different electromagnetic signature

Another wildcard is that EU tags copper and nickel as strategic metals and pushing for zinc. The Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) unveiled by the European Union adds the two major industrial metals to a list that had previously focused on more niche minerals such as cobalt, lithium and rare earths. Copper is used in renewable energy systems and for wiring in electric vehicles (EVs) while nickel is a major component in many EV batteries. https://www.mining.com/web/eu-tags-...-wants-more/ and https://copperalliance.org/wp-conte...ials-Act.pdf

that 80/20 seems like a lot of fuss for such a small change in copper and nickel percentages

re changing the cent's core to steel, are there machines other than Coinstar and bank coin counters that still accept cents? heck, even those penny gumball machines disappeared decades ago