Should the cent be kept?

hey guys,

There has been alot of talk about this, but I want to hear what the people on ct have to say. Should the cent be continued to be minted? It is definatly a piece of american history, being minted sicne 1793, but should we mint something that is worth 1 cent but costs 1.2 cents to mint. Lets hear your thoughts!!

 

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I only want it kept so I can still look through boxes of cents from the bank but the American cent has a rich history, and trying to round everything to the nearest five cents could be a pain.

 

Never! Do you know how easy it is for me to get 50 coins for 50 cents? Impossible without the cent!

Plus, I want the common wheat cent to stay cheap

 

haha I agree with both of you I am an avid cent crh

 

It can't buy anything so it should go away.

edit to add...That when I was young they had things called tax tokens that were graduated in Mill or 1/100 of a cent. When it got to the point that they weren't needed they disappeared just like today's zinc-on should.

 

Boo! (Keep in mind this is sarcastic)

 

It's centsless to keep the cent around, but Congress has never been known to have any common cents anyway. Why should they care. The Mint just keeps charging more and more for the Proof Sets, Mint Sets and all of the other BS because there are enough fools around to pay the outrageous prices that help to offset the losses for their noncentsical programs. Heck, they should even get rid of the dollar bill. It's only good for about 18 months, and besides, you don't see the politicians stuffing their pockets with measly bucks. No, they're after the big bucks.

I think the Mint should start making aluminum $1 & $2 coins, and we can call them "Loomies".

Chris

 

It costs more to mint then it is worth, our country is trillions of dollars in debt...

Our government needs to use basic logic skills and avoid situations like this. I enjoy looking through coins but can look through other coins just as easily as the cent.

 

Hmmm...interesting question. I never considered it before now. :scratch:

 

From a logical standpoint, yes, we should probably move to swedish rounding. Or make the cent out of something even cheaper than zinc... plastic? I don't know what it'd end up being, and probably isn't possible.
From a collector standpoint, I like the cent. I'd like to see it hang around. And yes, I really like to search cent boxes.

 

I don't think it needs to go away from circulation, just stop minting it all together. There are BILLIONS of them around, and I can't see any need to keep minting BILLIONS more every year.

 

I agree I for one will dump the coffee cans of them back into circulation to make that work.

 

I think the simplest solution would be to legally make every cent worth $.05, and make a new 5 cent piece like the current cent, and discontinue the current nickel. The nickel is currently a money loser as well. Legally round all purchases to the nearest nickel.

A cent has the purchasing power of more than a dime in the 50's, inflation has killed it, and we might as well face up to that.

 

I don't want it to go, but I think it probably needs too, or at least have a new composition and lower mintages

 

Maybe mint them every 5 years instead of every year. Problem is that the gov't is always worried that there may be a "shortage" of pennies, but nowadays not as much of the population really needs them because they use debit cards instead for nearly everything, and those that get change are quite used to getting a 95 cents in change when they should have gotten 93 or 94 (an example, it's happened to me). Generally the businesses take out of the take one/leave one container as neccessary. Many people do leave their pennies there, too --- they just don't bother with a cent or two.

 

I pick up more in the parking lots than I receive in change from purchases.

Chris

 

Don't let the door hit you in the reverse on the way out.

 

I'm all for getting rid of the cent, but only if that legislation includes getting rid of the biggest loser of all, the dollar bill.
Guy