Ireland Experiment With Dropping 1c And 2c Coins

Here in Brazil, there are no 1c coins since 2004

I was in a shop in the Netherlands just a few weeks ago (admittedly very near the German border) and was given two 1c coins (both German)in change.

Considering the enormous numbers of cents the US Mint has produced every year for decades, we ought to just suspend production. Let people empty out their jars, if the coins are needed so badly!

And we will.......in about 20 years.



Believe it or not if we did just stop production the cent would probably be gone as a circulating coin within a years time. It would rapidly become so difficult for businesses to get enough to use as change that they would voluntarily start rounding. And once enough businesses started doing that requests for cents at the banks would dry up. Without requests banks would just start shipping whatever did come in back to the Fed where they would sit because the banks would no longer be requesting them either. And with a stockpile in the Fed there would never be a reason to resume production.

Believe me, we don't make umpteen billion cents every year because the economy has grown so much it NEEDS umpteen billion more cents in circulation. They need those umpteen billion cents to replace the umpteen billion cents that went into change jars last year and aren't coming back out into circulation.

But if anyone (you) catches wind of the upcoming suspension:

Day before suspension: Withdraw entire bank account in pennies
Suspension in effect: Weeks/months of fun searching all the rolls
Sometime later:
- Sell huge volume of copper: 1.5x your money.
- Cash in zinc: 1.01x (or whatever) your money.
- Countless wheats, IHCs, piles of Canadian, plenty 2 euro-cents, dimes, etc. (maybe even a Flying Eagle): keep and enjoy.

But there would probably be a huge penny crunch as everyone raced to withdraw as many as they could...

...but since people would be motivated to cash in their whole change jars, pennies included, look out for a wave of nicer condition and silver coins in your rolls!

Our penny was taken out back and put down in the middle of the night, promotions be damned. Some people don't even think they're legal tender anymore, and give them away free...

Ever lived through a coin/cent shortage? I have, a couple if them. I've seen public appeals for people to turn back in their cents, didn't work. I've seen banks and businesses offering as much as $1.10 per dollar for cents, didn't work. Some places were already starting to round. And mind you this was while the mint was still striking cents. The only thing that ended the shortage was greatly increased production at the mint.

Frankly the premium offer was probably counterproductive. If they are paying a 10% premium now do you turn in what you have, or do you try and hoard up whatever you can get hoping for a higher premium later?

I've never lived through a coin shortage in the UK, but I visited Italy frequently in the 1970s and 1980s and there always seemed to be a shortage of small change. Although coins of 5, 10 and 20 lire existed, the smallest coin found in regular use was the 50L, and sometimes the 100L. If you were buying a single low value item like a can of soda, a bag of crisps or a picture postcard, it really put the price up - although the shop assistant would sometimes give you a few sweets, a book of matches or a postage stamp in change!