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 Replies: 54 / Views: 6,278 |
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Valued Member
 Canada
262 Posts |
The last Canadian pennies had a cost of about 1.6 cents [with plating] in both nearly pure steel and nearly pure zinc composition . Up here we were especially cheap, our zinc version was 98.4% zinc, 1.6% and the steel one was %94 steel, %1.5 nickel [as a plating layer], and %4.5 [as surface plating layer].
Conceivably, a pure steel penny, using cheap steel,with no plating perhaps could cost under 1.3 cents.
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Valued Member
Canada
262 Posts |
I mean, I think steel costs about $15 a pound.
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Valued Member
United States
410 Posts |
Steel is about $0.40 / pound right now. It varies based on the alloy and form (wire, plate, tube, etc)
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
And cheap steel with no plating would have a real problem with rust.
And say steel is 40 cents a pound. one pound of steel will make 165 cents. So the material cost per cent would be .24 cents per coin. So with the 2 cent per coin manufacturing cost that would make each cent cost 2.24 cents. A savings of .16 cents per coin over the current cost of 2.4 cents apiece and still a loss of 1.24 cents per coin. I don't see steel as being an answer.
As I have said before the ONLY way to make the cent profitable again would be to sell advertising space on them. A business could look at it this way. For $10M their ad is on a billion coins that would be in consumers pockets for the next ten to twenty years. Doesn't sound like a bad deal.
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Valued Member
Canada
262 Posts |
@Conder101 Rust won't be a problem with stainless steel, which contrary to popular belief actually does rust, but so negligibly it's irrelevant.
Yes, the cost of minting the coin is still over a penny, but I don't see the US government getting rid of them just yet, so slowing the bleeding looks like the solution.
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Moderator
 United States
188440 Posts |
Quote:
Rust won't be a problem with stainless steel... By using stainless steel, you will have actually increased the cost of the cent.  |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
Quote:
@Conder101 Rust won't be a problem with stainless steel, I said cheap steel. Stainless steel wouldn't have a rust problem but would probably cost more than the zinc they make them out of now. (Not to mention that I believe most stainless steels have a high nickel content. Nickel ain't cheap.) Stainless steels also have 10% or more chromium content, and chromium is around $6 a lb. Edited by Conder101
05/24/2012 10:53 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
594 Posts |
Evidently no one likes the real answer. Zinc is already in the coin, they just have to stop plating it. If you want to see how to make coinage on the cheap look at history. During World War II a lot of countries were occupied by the greedy Axis powers and their coinage was made of........wait for it..........ZINC! Check out the coins from Bohemia & Moravia, France, French-Indo China, Netherlands, Serbia, Tunisia, and heck even Germany itself to name a few. Japan mixed it with tin, and we plated steel with it. The only other material that I can think of is pop cans, I mean aluminum. I haven't done the math on that, but even that is probably too expensive.
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Rest in Peace
United States
9104 Posts |
The bottom line is the fabrication costs more than face value, I don't care if you use recycled toilet paper. The only thing left is electrons, or computer transfers of funds.
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Replies: 54 / Views: 6,278 |
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Posted 05/22/2012 11:36 pm
