As I've stated before, the U.S. mint takes a loss on cents and nickels and makes a killing on dimes and quarters, and dollar coins when they make them for circulation use. Even when they don't make dollar coins they are still turning over S100+ million profit doing what they are doing. I'm not willing to do the math again, feel free to if you like.
Now you can nitpick and say "the mint needs to turn a profit on each one individually". Yeah ok. sure. I see your point, everything it produces should break even or turn a profit. It's a business....If the cent or the nickel were the only thing it produced, it would be a serious problem, but it's not. They produce coinage for a country in whatever the denominations are required and the quantity required, and it's not a losing proposition overall of what they produce on any given year.
I will be honest here, I've heard the "get rid of the penny" or"it's gonna happen!' story my entire life, since the 1970s. It hasn't happened yet in 46 years of taking about it, and it's been talked about like it was going to happen "sometime soon" every single year.
It's not happening unless the raw materials and production costs gets so pricey that they are getting close to breaking even or taking an annual loss on production.
I will say it could be done, it wouldn't cause much of a disruption, but if they get rid of the cent, they should also get rid of the nickel for the same reason and just keep dimes and quarters.
Canada has been talking about dumping the 5 cent coin since 2013 since they aren't profitable either, so the question becomes where does it end and should we just round everything up to a $1.00 minimum and shut the mints down entirely, ya know, to "save costs and such"?
I really don't think it's going to happen. Why? because in the end U.S. coin and currency is global advertisement, you can find it in the
Amazon and Antarctica, someone in Africa probably collects U.S. cents also! coins last a long time, and overall it's still profitable to mint coins.
One day a thousand or more years from now, U.S. coins will be dug up as the ancients of Rome, and they will be found Everywhere on the planet and that's gotta account for something in the grand scheme of things.
I give out pens at work, they cost us. we lose on them every year, but I give hundreds of them away, and they get around because pens walk off and change hands, and while we don't make money off the pens, we make money off the pens every time someone says "I found your contact info and wanted to inquire about xxx" We could save money by not giving away 1000+ branded pens at a loss each year, but it may affect a portion of sales and our bottom line in the long run. My father use to say, "don't step over dollars to pick up pennies". Restaurants give out free ketchup. That costs them, if they stopped giving out ketchup, they'd save a lot of money. But is it smart to get rid of the ketchup altogether especially when it's branded with their business logo on the packets?
Last paragraph become sort of rambling, apologies for that. hahahhaa
collections will still exist, and it won't affect the market prices really, especially with cents, not for a very long time.
Posted 07/16/2020 06:40 am
