US Mint Has Destroyed Lincoln Cent Collecting.

Actually, they don't have to make a profit to exist. They use our taxpayer money to make money.

And I was thinking they'd come out with another Lincoln design in 38 years from now.

1. It's more than "the cost of copper". Inflation had reached the point that, even if they were capable of minting coins out of thin air for free, the cost of manufacturing and distributing them would still be more than 1 cent each.

2. It's not a case of "the cost of cent production should be offset by the Mint something else more profitable". The point is, if the mint isn't making a profit on every single coin they make, they are failing in their primary purpose of earning maximum revenue for their government.

3. If the complaint is about the particular substitute that was used to replace copper, consider this: would you be happier if 1 cent coins were made of aluminium, or plastic, or cardboard? Zinc was selected mainly because the zinc lobby was more persuasive than the steel lobby, or the aluminium lobby.


Let's see, how to answer this.

4. Would you be content with the Mint just issuing copper pennies in the Proof and Unc sets? Should the sets include both the copper and zinc pennies, or only the copper ones? And if not including the zinc, how would people be assured of obtaining truly Unc zinc pennies?

5. If you're asking the Mint to sell you just copper pennies separate from the collector sets, either individually or in bulk, what price would you be prepared to pay? Five dollars? A dollar each? 50 cents? They certainly aren't going to ever sell them to you for 1 cent each, given it would cost them 5 to 10 cents to make.

6. Would you expect and require these "collectors only" pennies to have the same design as the current circulating pennies, or to revive one of the older designs, or to have brand new, made-for-collectors designs? Or maybe ten different collector penny designs every year, "forcing" you to buy one of each in order to keep your set "complete"?

I personally am not a big fan of countries that continue to issue obsolete denominations "for collectors" long after their effective use as actual money has expired due to inflation. There are other countries that do this, and Australia has done it on occasion, issuing one-off collector-only 1 cent and 2 cent coins, long after those denominations were abolished in 1991.

The simple fact is, the penny is no longer a "circulation coin", because they very rarely "circulate". They get minted, shipped to the banks and retailers, the retailer gives Joe Public several in "change"... and Joe then either leaves them behind on the counter, throws them away, or tosses them in a jar at home and waits for them to corrode into worthless dust. Very, very few people these days stop and spend the time to fumble around in their pocket, purse or wallet for "exact change" and actually uses as money the pennies they were given previously. It literally isn't worth their time to do this. This is why "worn zinc pennies" are as rare as hen's teeth; they never get used enough to display actual wear.

It is this that is sounding the death-knell for the penny. Because the only reason - the only reason - why any country would make large quantities of coins at a loss, is utilitarianism - providing their taxpaying citizens with a service, objects that actually help to facilitate trade. Example: for several years after the fall of communism, the government of Russia continued to make 15-kopek coins, long after 15 kopeks became worthless due to inflation. But 15 kopeks was the fare on the government-owned buses and metro trains, so a 15-kopek coin continued to provide a service - they were, effectively, government-issued bus tokens.

US pennies do not provide any such service. These days, anyone actually using pennies hinders trade, rather than helps.

Exactly.

Americans would know for sure, but I am under the impression that the mint is required to make them, and their elimination would require legislation. There must be a huge demand in commerce as they make billions of them. The mint also has an obligation to reduce costs as much as they can, so this is the best solution where all the alternatives are worse.

I am also quite sure that the US mint's main purpose, like all mints, is not to make coins for collectors.

Let's see, 1982 plus 40 is... Yes, you're right!

That's not how inflation works. Changing the alloys of the coinage from precious to cheap isn't a cause of inflation, it's merely a symptom. If you want evidence for this, just look at Mexico. The Mexican silver lobby persuaded the Mexican government that restoring silver into the coinage would stop rampant Mexican inflation. So they started issuing circulating silver coins in 1992 - the first the world had seen since the 1970s. Did it stop inflation? No, inflation continued merrily - and once the value of the silver in the coins exceeded their face value a couple of years later, the coins all mysteriously disappeared from circulation, into melting pots...

Inflation is, fundamentally, caused by human greed. People want more money, so they lobby until they get higher wages. Companies need to maintain profits in spite of rising wages, so they have to raise their prices to compensate. Everything now costs more, so people demand even higher wages so they can continue to buy the same things... and so the cycle repeats.

Not even the Communists, with their much-vaunted command economy and ideological hatred of the concept of profit, could control inflation, much less reverse it. No government has ever been able to stop it, and governments have been trying ever since the invention of coinage.

Look at it this way: suppose we all agree that breaking the inflation spiral would be a good thing. Who's going to volunteer to take the first pay cuts? Which businesses are going to volunteer to take less profits? Human greed means everyone will answer, "not me".

The other reason why simply restoring precious metal to the coinage won't stop inflation is statistics: there simply isn't enough precious metal to go around any more. Our population continues to grow exponentially; the only way to keep people happy and not trying to overthrow the government is to ensure the money supply grows exponentially along with it. And the rate of production of precious metals is linear-growth at best - there's no way that a precious-metal-based coinage can keep up, making inflation inevitable. Unless you start exterminating the surplus population, or start strip-mining Antarctica and the asteroids to allow for a resumption of exponential mineral exploitation.