I was thinking, why does the US mint so many cents? I mean, there are plenty still circulating... also, how often do they melt them down?
Because they aren't in circulation. They are sitting in bowls and jars and boxes in private homes. They mint as many as the Federal Reserve ask them for - and it's a lot.
They do circulate but few folks pull them out of their pocket to pay for a purchase. The mint is on the hook to provide the needed cents to keep it all working. By law it's not legal to melt a cent or a nickel.
But why would the mint melt cents, when they in turn have to mint many many more just so they can site in cans, bottles, dresser draws, and other collecting containers?
They don't melt them because it cost more than 1 cent to mint them, that would be a waste of ........well nevermind, the government does not waste money right?
The Mint already has the cost of minting the cent in the first place. Add to that the cost of melting down old cents to then mint them, and it's just not cost effective... the materials (zinc, copper) are hardly rare after all. In the past the Mint would melt down surplus silver and gold coins though.
The Mint buys cent planchets from an outside contractor. They are no longer set up to convert melted cents into new cent blanks/planchets.
I sould suspect that most of the 2009 commerative lincolns will be hoarded. Interesting, Ive went through several large cans of change recently and noted that in recent cans....the 2004/5 nickels are seldom seen. I went through one can with the latest dates of 2005 and found many more (in relation to the total number of nickels). Also, I noted that I found quite a few very bright 1982's.....I think these were hoarded, but have been cashed back in in recent years. anyone else see this?
Also the mint does not melt down cents because they don't come back to the mint. The Fed ships OUT more cents than come back from the banks and they make up the difference by getting new cents from the mint. And that shortfall of out over in amounts to billions of cents each and every year. So there is no reason any cents would ever go back to the mint.
i always thought that the mint took the old worn out cents or the ones that are mutilated and then destroyed them like they do with bills.
or just old ones, as i thought. Similar to bills how they destroy anything older than what? early '90s? I figure they'd do the same with cents (although not the 90's, maybe the 70s or so)
i don't think the mint destroyes coins due to age like they do the bills. anything 1995 or older $5 and up gets destroyed no matter the condition.
They do. But there are so few of them that they don't amount to much. As I said in the beginning of this thread, the vast majority of cents are sitting in peoples houses. Sure they get them in change, but they don't turn around and spend them again. They collect them until they have a lot of them and then they cash them in. Guilty of it myself, only I do it with all change not just cents. All these stories you hear or read about where a guy buys a truck/car with cents, or somebody cashes in literally millions of the things after collecting them for decades - that's where all the cents are. And that's why they keep havoing to make so many every year.
