Steel Coin Bill Gets Hearing In House.

If the pennies and nickels cost so much to produce, why produce them?

Same applies to the one dollar note.

With those two coins gone, a smaller size half could be included in the circulating coinage system, along with the existing dollar coins.

The pennies and nickels could still be included in Mint collector series, if there is a demand.

Just imagine: a pure nickel Nickel! Hmmmmm. The Canadians tried that once upon a time!

NO!

Switching to steel will save virtually no money whatsoever in the production of pennies because the switch to steel will require a tremendous increase in the number of dies needed.

The cost of the penny ultimately has almost no bearing on the material of which it's made anyway because the costy of the penny is having to count and handle something so worthless that there is no material which has such low a value. The cost of the penny is in the waste of using it and transporting it to landfills.

Steel weighs a lot more trhan zinc meaning shipments will cost substantially more. Instead of a few semi loads every day there will be a few more. It's more wear and tear on the roads that serves no purpose.

Interesting concept. But I find when people who desperately want the dollar coin to be used exclusively (by the government eliminating the dollar bill), tend to dismiss this concept if not totally deny there is a problem with it when applied to the issue of the dollar coin.

In another thread I finally just polled the Canadians. They gave me links to their own news broadcasts from years gone by, that said, indeed, a weight problem is a real issue they were forced to swallow.

I legitimately wonder if the government savings would outpace the added expense consumers/the private sector would be stuck with b/c of increased shipping charges for the metal coins vs paper?

This was brught home to me in a more real manner the other day when I picked up a box of a thousand Rutherford B Hayes dollars at the bank. Actually I was thinking it was a box (my first) of JFKs since this is what I ordered). When I hefted it to put into my bag, and then was walking it to the car, I was saying to myself that it was no wonder some banks charge extra to order these!

When I got them home to start roll searching and saw that the teller had mistakenly given me a box of dollar coins, it got me to thinking just how much more it would cost to ship these as opposed to paper. I know I am sure glad not to be in a position (like some venders would be) where I would be forced to carry 5 or more boxes of these at a time - they ARE heavy!

Yes, I am for the government not spending tax payer money - but I have to wonder if the savings are worth the inconvenience? Granted I personally would not really be affected by only using coins (too much) since I do not plan on getting more boxes of these. But having that many of the coins actually in hand - experiencing them for myself - really brought to life how businesses would be affected by cost of handling the much heavier metal coins.

Maybe the taxpayer savings, overall, would actually cover the cost But somehow I also think that the taxpayers would never see any of that savings go back in their own pockets anyway. So in the long run, it would just be more expensive, but only in the private sector of people who deal with large amounts of these, to use them.

I've heard this argument before and it doesn't make sense. A quarter weighs 5.7 grams and a dollar coin weighs 8.1 grams with a difference of 2.4 grams (less than a tenth of an ounce). And there are about 28 grams in an ounce.

The money is transported in armored cars, which are much heavier than you can imagine, so the extra weight shouldn't matter. It is no different than them transporting thousands of quarters or thousands of dollar coins.

Yeah, a dollar coin weighs much more than a dollar note, but still, the savings of not having to print almost 900 million notes each year and get rid of or destroy the shredded notes, to replace the worn ones, is a huge savings.

Canada and many other countries have been doing this for decades. If it was done at a bigger loss, they wouldn't be doing it.

I think he was talking about the 5 cent piece (AKA nickel), which has been talked about being eliminated in other threads, since it costs over 11 cents to make.

And just by eliminating the cent or 5 cent piece, has nothing to do with individual pricing. It is about the final sale and it only affects cash transactions. It would be more complex in rounding and I don't think the average person could ever understand it.

I could see the US Mint replacing the copper in the nickel (5 cent piece) with steel, since Canada is doing that now and I think they are making it without a loss.

I'm confused. Does this bill make the cents and nickels out of steel, or does it make all the coins out of steel? If it just does the cents and nickels it's a waste of time because it will barely make the nickels profitable at current rates, and they will still lose money on the cents.



Steel weigh less than 10% more than zinc. On the other hand, if the bill makes all the coins out of steel, steel weighs 14% LESS than coppernickel which means shipments with weigh substantially LESS.



Correct, because the cost of production right now, not including the materials, is already Two Cents apiece. So even if the material cost NOTHING you would still lose one cent apiece for every one you make.



True but if you get rid of the cent and the nickel and leave the dime rounding to ten cents they will be times where you need to return 15 cents in change and without cents or nickels that becomes more difficult. The buyer will need to give you another dime and get a quarter back. What if he doesn't have the dime? He can give then a quarter and get four dimes back. And vending machines probably can't handle this so all prices will have to be in quarter increments.

I dont think making change would be as big of a deal as one might think at first. They could either leave current coins in circulation for a few years or prices would just change. In fact that could leave current coins for a while to give time for pice adjustments. Cash transactions are declining anyway and it wouldnt affect credit cards.