Coins cost more to make than face value

USA TODAY LINK

I love our country and I usually support our government....but this is ridiculous. Let's dump the Cent....and mabye the Nickel too. We should make them both out of aluminum or another inexpensive composite. F the vending machine producers and distributors. That is one of the reasons I believe we haven't made changes thus far....

Also...does it look likie our friends at USA Today shined the penny in the article....

Another interesting link with this theme is Coinflation

 

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I believe that another reason that the coins will not change is that the Senators and Representatives from Illinois would never let legislation that would 'cheapen' the penny (and Lincoln). The same goes for Virginia and Jefferson.

 

The cent has many supporters. Copper and zinc producers, charities(kettles & fountains etc.),sales tax collectors and more. It would be almost as tough to convince the public that they would not be ripped off by rounding as it would be to get them to use dollar coins.

 

Let's turn the Lincoln cent into a Lincoln two cent, or better yet-a Lincoln three cent It'll be the long awaited 150th reunion :high5:------Bill

 

My grandfather was telling me about that. I wonder if they should drop the coin or just change the metal. I mean, you can't jut get rid of the penny! It's awesome!

 

The mint is losing money everytime they mint a cent- right now there's about .009 cents worth of just the metal that's put in the coin. If you add in all the costs for manufacturing, I'm sure the mint is producing a negative profit-which I'm absolutely thrilled about-:kewl:
You're right mamooney-I think they cleaned it too

 

the cost is up again for us mint

as of may 10, 2006. bullion value for nickel is $0.057. cent before 1982 is $0.025 and after is $.014

 

i bet the profits they make on quarters and dollar coins make up for it

 

I'm confused. How come so many people think our government cares about making a profit at anything? If the cost of making a cent cost $100, the Mint would still say "Hey, so what. We still have our jobs, so there"
Now if people keep on making posts like this one, the government will hear about it and hire 500 people to do a study on whether we are right or not. These 500 would all be relatives and they would still have that job for the next 25 years regarless of the findings. They have been known to pay hundreds for a hammer, so why the concern if a cent cost a dollar or more.

 

re the usa today pic- omg- a wire brush or sandpaper!
Whether or not people "want" a 1-cent coin, we really don't need to make any more. I think there are several thousand per household already out there.
About the presidents on the coins, make a new nickel with Mt. Rushmore! Then someday we can consider replacing those presidents on our coins.

 

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not saying the government is all about making a profit. But it's obvious to me that the mint is. You look at their prices-OUTRAGEOUS! Charging what they do for a proof set and the premiums they put on bags of coins-
According to USA Today:

• The Mint is one of the few government agencies that makes a profit.
• Mint officials estimate the added penny and nickel expenses will reduce the Mint's profit this year by $45 million.
• Last year, the Mint's coin-making profit was $730 million.

That sounds like some major profits to me

 

The profit from the Mint is about enough money to run the federal government for two and a half hours if you don't count social security or medicare or off budget items. If you count those items, it's a blink of an eye. It's a rounding error. But it's interesting to see the comments from people who almost seem upset that some of our money actually has intrinsic value at the present time. I expect them to keep the cent and nickel. If the metal prices stay high for a couple of years, they'll probably look into changing the compostion again. I'm not sure it would be politically acceptable to round everything up to the nearest dime.

 

Virtually every where I go these days, prices are "rounded" by leaving the cents or getting a cent. I was surprised yesterday, even at the grocery store, with me fumbling to find a penny, the clerk said "I've got it". The rounding worry is just not substantiated. On the 30 bucks worth of groceries the tax was $2.10. A cent or two one way or the other is only 1/1000 of the total.
In any case, there just is NO sense or need to make another 10,000,000,000 coins! Someone somewhere (in congress?) has got to be waaaaay off their rocker not to put a stop to that.

 

The main priority of the US Mint is to provide coinage to facilitate commerce. Getting rid of the cent or nickel means State Governments will have to develope new legislation addressing breakage - sales tax, interest and etc. Business and Banks would have to re-program or purchase new cash registers, accounting software and etc. Employers would have to adjust employee's hourly wages. You can't pay an employee $9.01 or $9.05 per hour if there is no penny or nickel. I know as coin collectors we spend all our time analizing things on the surface - but in real life things ussually aren't that simple.

With all that said - what I am seaching for is a non-toxic, inexpensive solution that will float an object the size of a US Cent weighing 2.6 grams but will allow an object the same size weighing 3 grams or more to sink. Any suggestions.

 

I realize, as posted the Mint makes a lot of money selling proofs, uncirc's, commemoratives, etc. and this is supposed to indicate they are profitable. However, I still wonder if the profit from that offsets the loss due to the cost of metal, dies, machinery, man power, shipping to banks, bag and boxes for coin shipping, used to produce everday usage coins. The additional cost of fuel used to shipping coins all over the country with todays fuel prices also must be considered. Then there is the continuous process of replentishing old currency, new designs for currency, newer inks, etc. I think many, many of these costs are not included in the production of our money but are deferred to some other purpose or expenditures. I may be wrong but I've seen to many buried costs in our government.

 

re. the above

:
I don't think there is any serious discussion going on about the nickel. But for the cent, the above reminds me of the Y2K predictions. Just ain't gonna happen. jmho. Rounding in programs is easy. New cash registers???? These types of illogical arguments are like the logic that killed metric measurements for the U.S. and is keeping the $ bill instead of a $ coin.
JMHO and respecting your opinion, while disagreeing. :smile

I still wonder why there is no groundswell of opinion against minting another 10,000,000,000 of them.

 

because we like them. I don't think Americans want to live in a country where Lincoln isn't on the cent.

 

The quarter has nearly 6.5c worth of metal in it which is far more than the '32-S quarter had when it was released. Of course in those days the government acted more responsibly and would never have issued coins at a loss.

 

I'd love to get one of those machines that seperates copper from zinc cents