Penny And Nickel Coins To Be Phased Out In 2013

Which is total hogwash. Sales Tax already has to be rounded to the nearest cent; rounding it to the nearest nickel or dime is trivial. This sort of ignorance in our government is part of the problem.

Considering the comments date back to this past May, and we haven't heard this from any other source in the past six months the article is obviously a fake. (Also the figures given in the article for the cost of producing the dime and quarter are also wrong. Roughly double the actual costs.)

That study back in 76 recommended the elimination of the cent at that time, over 35 years ago. And that study has been redone several times since then. Every time it has recommended the elimination of the cent and replacing the dollar note with the dollar coin. We keep paying for that study again and again, getting the same answers and then ignoring the recommendations.

The mint was required and funded by congress to commission a new study which was contracted and the study's results and recommendations are expected to be presented to congress in December. That doesn't mean that the recomendations will be followed (and history shows they will probably be ignored) and even if they were it would take considerable time to be drafted, voted on and approved by congress, and then implimented. No matter what, there are far more beurocracy hurdles to be overcome before anything can be changed. The mint certainly cannot do it on their own authority.

My own personal opinion is that we WILL see either metal content changes or a denomination or two eliminted (most likely the half, but the penny and the nickel are also unlikely possibilities) but they will happen at a snails pace ie no changes actually taking effect until 2015 or 2016.

Metal change for the cent is pointless. It already cost more than one cent just to make one cent; even if the material were free, they would still be a loss.

Yeah beat me to it, jbuck. That was the first thing which when through my mind when I read the OP.

Exactly which is why you know its time for it to go. If you cant even mass produce it for under its face value in any material it certainly isn't going to buy anything.

The only people that care about pennies are collectors and people looking for cheap copper. The three most likely destinations of pennies I would bet are jars, coin sorters, and albums not cash registers or pocket change

I thought it was only a matter of time till it happened when I read the title. Still is, but who knows when that will be.

Exactly, they charge over face for those anyway so its not an issue and everyone wins