OK, we all know the problems with current coinage. The penny and nickel cost more to make then they are worth and the penny really doesn't circulate, it is received in change and gets tossed in jars and cans and eventually returned to CoinStar or the bank to be rerolled and reused.
Dimes haven't been changed in 65 years except for the 1965 composition change.
Quarters are the basic unit of coins these days and, while the
State Quarters were successful, the Parks quarters have not captured the imagination of the public nearly as much.
Halves and dollars are all but unused. I dropped a couple Golden Dollars at the grocery the other day and thought the clerk was going to call the police since he thought they were fake. When is the last time you got a half dollar in change?
Metal content has no bearing on coin value these days, the metal in a nickel is worth more than that of a dime... The dollar coin is smaller than a half dollar, the dime smaller than the nickel and cent.
I often thought a devalue by a factor of 10 would solve the coinage problem, the cent would actually become useful again as well as the other small coins. While I still think that would work, it would be quite a shock to the country. We could instead reevaluate the coinage and create new size coins that more accurately reflect the relative values.
Without revaluing the Dollar how about this:
A new Cent would be slightly smaller than a current dime with a holed center and copper color.
The new 5 cent piece would be slightly larger than the current dime and the same copper color as the new cent.
There would be no need for a 10 cent piece in my scheme.
The quarter would be made of the same nickel-copper mix (25/75%) as the current nickel and be slightly larger than the new 5 cent piece but perhaps a little thinner.
Eliminate the 50 cent piece.
The new dollar coin would be about the size of the current quarter (sized differently to let machines differentiate them). It would be the same nickel-copper composition as the current nickel.
The 2 dollar coin would be a bit larger than the new dollar coin, perhaps bi-metallic like the Twoonie.
There would only be two metal compositions, copper coated zinc for the cents and 5 cent pieces as well as the center of the new $2 coin. 75% copper/25% nickel would be used for the 25 cent coin as well as the dollar and outer part of the $2 coins.
Size would then become more relevant to fiat value of the coins, this would help satisfy advocates for the blind and my own self indulgence.
Metal compositions would be simplified and the ugly clad sandwiches would be gone.
Magnets can still be used to weed out the evil foreign coins in counters and vending machines.
Only 5 coins would be needed to satisfy small value commerce and the paper dollar can be eliminated.
As for designs, I would change the reverse every 5 years. Have each denomination assigned a theme and let the reverses change to follow that theme. Instead of dead presidents and statesmen on the obverse go back to the Liberty images of olde.
I know the vending machine industry has a lot of say in coin size and composition matters but these days more and more vending machines take paper and plastic so that influence is less and less all the time.
Posted 03/10/2012 10:10 am
But, like The NickelGuy said, whatever they end up doing it will cost more to make a cent, even if they get the material for free. That is why I like the devaluation option better. 
