The Fate of our Circulating Coinage

Over the years I have seen and been in discussions where the lowly cent was discussed as to it’s worth as a circulating coin. Such things as, ‘should be discontinue the cent and start rounding off prices’, to coming up with a new coin like a 2 cent coin. Well that decision just might be about to be made for us, as the price of raw material keeps going through the roof. Here are some examples as given in the latest report from the U.S. Mint’s annual report (Sept. 30, 2005);
In Sept. Copper was being traded at $1.60 to $1.80 per pound.
Nickel was being traded at $6.00 to $6.50 per pound.
Zinc was being traded at $0.60 to $0.65 per pound.
Then just 5 months later these prices have gone up to:
Copper.........$2.20/lb.
Nickel..........$6.73/lb. (but it had been above $7.00 most of Jan.)
Zinc..............$0.90/lb

The report gives the cost of minting various coins at:
1 cent=$0.0097 cents
5 cent Nickel=$0.0483 cents
All the rest of the circulating coins are currently below the face value and are in no danger of being changed in the near future.
Oh yes, 70% of the cost was based on raw material price.

It’s what they call ‘supply and demand’. China alone increased demand of Nickel consumption by 50% in 2005 with their building boom and industrialization.
Care to comment? :secret:

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Dump the Penny

Let's be like other civilized countries and dump the damn the 1 cent equivilent. I know many people want to at least wait until 2009 for the 100th anniversary...but why do we really care.

I am sure the Copper and Zinc Producers are currently donating lots of money to our Politicians to keep the penny alive. Does anyone have any information on this?

 

Did you read the article on this in coin world. Really, their needs to be a devaluation of cuurency all together and pennies and nickles need to go. But the raw cost of metal is not yet pushing them out. The dime should become the new penny and so on.

Ruben

 

The penny is a huge drain on the economy not so much because it costs well over a cent to
make it but because of the huge waste in peoples' time when this worthless dross is counted
and handled. People are too valuable to waste in handling, producing, and hauling around
something which represents negative wealth.

When you add up all this waste it amounts to many lifetimes each year.

 

You are absolutely right Rube, that is where I read the article on cost of manufacturing current coins. The figures given were taken from the U.S. Mint’s annual report (Sept. 30, 2005) as stated. Is there a problem with this source that you know of?:kewl:

 

Make them out of plastic :smile

De Orc

 

Maybe they are going to drop the penny in 2009? That would not surprise me.

 

This is what happens to all fiat money. First the cent, then nickel, and eventually all denominations go to zero once you start circulating slugs and tokens as money. It might take a long time but it's a fairly sure bet. When money was defined as a particular weight of precious metal, this could not happen. Just think how bad things must be getting when money is so worthless that no physical material on the planet can be found to represent it. Amazing and sad at the same time.

 

This is what happens to all fiat money.>>

Still beating that drum of misinformation.

 

No problem with the source. Just checking.

BTW - it is snowing here.

 

Here too!

 

In your cave!

 

LOL, the wind is blowing it in here!


Actually, my computer is in our basement (you know, the place below ground where we go during tornados lol) and when we moved into this house it was REALLY poorly lighted and my wife started calling it my "lair". I nstalled 4 new lights down here, so the lighting is fine now, but the "lair" nickname stuck, so this is one Cave Troll who has moved out of his cave and into a lair! lol.

 

Be glad you still have a wife. I wish I still had one. (A liar can be a cool place with a wife in the house)

Ruben

 

All we really need an account number and a means of credits and debits to that account (Currently Credit and or debit card). No physical monitary system needed, in most areas of the country anyways.

 

What nickman said is the future of our monetary system. All coins and currency will soon be a thing of the past. Soon enough you'll heard kids asking their parents "what is that stuff you old people keep calling money?" In the very near future in ordr to see any forms of money, especially coins due to wieight, you will have to go to a museum.
Don't know what it's like by you but I think at most stores, gas stations, etc. I go to about 75% of all sales are with checks or plastic credit or debit cards. And unless people are doing it just to irritate the ones in line behind them, it will be the wave of the near future. Just saw some kind of add where a person just waved a card at a machine and stuff was payed for.
Now if this becomes reality, what will criminals be doing. Will they run up to a person with a machine and say this is a robbery, stick your card in that slot in my machine and I'll tell you how much I'm robbing you of?
How about gum ball machines for kids. Will all kids have a credit card for the new credit card bubble gum machines? What would Washington have done with a credit card sailing over that river?
Can you think of a place where plastic cards can not replace coins?

 

cash is not completely gone but much of what you say is correct. Its not in the governments interest to have real cash and they have prevented cash from being used for large transactions by refusing to print or mint larger denomination. It might well be that the only use for cash in the near future will be for your kids allowance.

Ruben

 

Although many more transactions are becoming electronic, I doubt we will ever live in a note-less and coin-less society. The largest problem is there would no longer be any such thing as an unrecorded transaction. Having an electronic record of where you spend your money and how much is something that many people will not welcome. Another problem is a private transaction between two individuals. If a friend owes you ten dollars, will you have to carry around some device to accept their card?

Most importantly, what do you do when the power goes out? Or when there's an interruption in the telecommunications system? You can't rely on checks (which is pretty much just another form of a note), unless you are willing to take the risk of accepting bad checks.

I think as long as we are in a society in which goods or services are traded between parties instead of given freely, we will always have some form of hard currency -- whether it be based on a metal standard or fiat.

 

Coin tosses. I can hear it now... you call it, numbers up or magnetic strip?

 

Thank of all those poor restaurant servers, barbers, cab drivers, etc., when the IRS can check up on exactly how much they received in tips.