The Power Of The Lincoln Copper Cent!

I also keep coppers as well

Although it has seems to have corrected itself, please do not make this thread a political discussion.

No real harm. It is easy to get off topic, especially when political events can affect the hobby we love.

My post was a gentle reminder; I was just trying to keep people from taking your side-discussion "to the next level."

I agree with "everything"

Not a good idea. If they eliminate the cent there will be an initial cent shortage that will work itself out in a couple of months as the cents disappear and merchants give up on trying to get cents and simply start rounding. To keep introducing another billion cents each year will simply keep stretching out the shortage period where there won't be enough cents to really meet demand but too many to encourage people to give up and round. In short it will only prolong the "agony" period, and do so indefinitely.

I agree they should be stopped minting too, but I was thinking that is a possibility to reduce the mintage. It might not be ideal as not minting, since they might want to gradually stop after a few years of reduced minting.

Eliminate isn't the best word, since they'll always be legal tender. I think you meant to say eliminate minting them?

And in 20 years after they stop minting them, they'll pop up every once in a while for someone to spend 10 of them, instead of a dime and the cashier will look at you like, what are these?

In the 1960's we went through the Great Coin Shortage that was (falsely probably) blamed on collectors in part, when silver became worth more at melt than the coin value it represented. Silver was pulled out of circulation by the masses since it had always been considered a precious metal and individuals had ways of achieving remuneration above face value. Many just held the coins waiting for increased prices for silver.

We don't see that level of interest in the current base metal coins outside of collectors like us or a few of the survivalists bloggers. Most "civilians" out there could care less for several reasons.

First, the value to costs ratio is way too low, even for the copper cent. By the time one collects enough coins to melt into ingots, pays for the work (or invests in the equipment) any profit is long gone.

Second, there are no easy and profitable ways to convert copper cents to easily spendable money like there is for silver and gold. Walk into a local coin store with a few hundred mixed LMC's from 59 through 82 and try and get anything more than face value and you will be sorely disappointed. Same goes for nickels.

You will not see any huge rush of the masses saving nickels or cents for the metal value unless copper, nickel and/or zinc rises to price levels rivaling silver, it just doesn't make economic cents to do so for the majority of people. The amount of coins needed to make it profitable would fill your garage.

The federal mandates prohibiting the melt of cents and nickels is likely to be overturned if challenged. The problem with that is it takes a lot of money to challenge laws, rulemakings etc. and it just isn't worth it right now at these metal prices to wind this through the courts.

While many of us save any copper cents we receive in change (I did too for a while but threw them back after a while) I doubt any of us are going to be getting rich by doing so.