Obama Adminstration's Plan To Change Metal In US Coins

My wife throws pennys away all the time, it makes me mad.

I think getting rid of the penny and nickel and $1 bills and minting coins every other or every 3 years would save alot of money. IMO they should move to a cheaper metal too.

They could even get rid of the $5 bill like someone else posted but then they should make a $2, $3, or even a $5 coin. CAD uses the $2 coin and it works for them.

I personally think a $5 could would be neat.

I dont know how long coins last but I know that when I get a bill pre 2000 its pretty rare. coins stay around for a really long time. and if you make higher $ coins then people wount vacuum them up or throw then in a lake they will acually use them and they will stay in circulation longer.

On the flip side it would be a pain in the butt carrying a bunch of change in your pocket all the time. going shopping at the mall and getting $25 in coins back. but thats what debit and credit cards are for.

I don't think an alloy change would necessarily be a bad thing. As a collector of non-U.S. coins as well as U.S. coins,I collect and enjoy coins made of a variety of alloys. Canada's plated steel coinage holds up quite well in circulation. I'd also favor aluminium coinage. I have quite a few East German coins, and most of the ones I have are made of aluminium, and they look quite nice even in ciruclated condition. Aluminium-Bronze is another alloy I like. I've seen this used in Chilean 10 Peso coins, and it holds up quite well. I think an aluminium-bronze cent might be a good option, if it brings the costs down enough. The cent would remain a similar color, although it'd be more of a yellow than a red, and it'd hold up much better than the current Zincolns do ( I'm sure we've all seen 1980's Zinclons that are just rotting, for lack of a better word). However, the time has finally come to do away with the $1 bill, I'd say. We need to do waht Canada, the Eurozone and Turkey have done and force the use of high denomination coinage.

Lets get rid of the dollar bill.
It costs about 7 cents each to print a dollar bill, which lasts on average about two years maximum.
The average coin costs about 20 cents or so and would last about 10-15 years.
How is THAT for a cost savings?

That happened to me at lunch the other day.

I think there are plenty of cents out there. Since 1983, there have been 269.3 Billion of those things minted (not including 2009). That is just about $10 each person in pennies. No, I do not foresee a shortage if we stopped minting them for a year, or even 5 years.

You also have to understand the thinking of the general public. Sure there are plenty of cents out there, in bottles and jars, boxes etc. But not in the actual streams of commerce. As a general rule the public will NOT bother taking them back to the banks. Then as the supplies in the banks start to dry up (because they will continue to go from the banks, to the people, to the hoards, shortages WILL occur. Businesses will start asking people to use exact change, eventually the banks and businesses will, for awhile, even offer to pay a premium over face value to get cents. Some people will then redeem their cents, but nowhere near enough. Other people will see the scarcity of the cents and the premiums offered as a reason to start hoarding them hoping for even higher premiums in the future. The net results is an even faster disappearance of the cents from commerce. Rather than continue to pay ever higher premiums to get cents the businesses will eventually begin rounding.

I know what I am talking about. I've seen this happen at least three times during my lifetime. ach time the only thing that stopped it was a greatly increased output of cents from the mint. And it doesn't take that long for the shortages to begin once coin production slows or stops. Why do you think they have to make billions of new cents every year and why are the normally the first new coins seen in circulation each year? It's be cause the Fed DOESN'T normally have that many in storage. To a very large extent the cent is a one way one time use coin, and if production stops shortages begin shortly thereafter.

I think changing the alloys would be the most likely thing to occur.

Eliminating the dollar bill and other bills, in short, will be disastrous for Massachusetts and other states that provide the paper, ink and technology to print banknotes. Currently, the $1 bill I think occupies 45-50% of the total pieces of banknotes issued in the United States, and because of its low value, it has to be reprinted... A LOT. So, if the one dollar bill is not issued anymore, that would destroy a large part of those local economies (like Crane Co, which is located in small Dalton, MA. No senator or congressperson would want that on their conscience.

Other countries that have changed their small "change" into coins can do that because their currency system is not dependent on a representative congress, but a central bank. Our federal reserve doesn't have the constitutional right to change our money, so that's why the congress has to deal with it. Whether or not that's a good idea, it'll have to depend who's for and against the fed and on what grounds.

Anyways, I think in 1 year or so we will be seeing steel coins. Although it would carve out a large part of the revenue from Jarden Zinc and other nickle/copper suppliers, at least it would help another American company.

One more thing... I think there's going to be some more opposition against eliminating the dollar bill because it's, at least the way I think, the most recognizable American currency other than the $100 bill. Do you know why the new series colored notes still have the old 19th century font and typography? I've read on the BEP site that the new notes have to remain "distinctly American." Perhaps that would still keep the dollar from being eliminated and more boring designs to keep coming our way.

As much as I would like to see polymer notes, I think the US wouldn't agree to it because the polymer is supplied by Australia and I think for every note we print, we would have to give the RBA and CSIRO some licensing fees or something of the like. c'mon DuPont! Just develop a currency polymer! And no, we don't want Tyvek anymore.