Yes, banks collect them almost every day. When they get enough they turn them in to the Fed and the coins are melted and recycled.
It's pretty hard for me to believe they actually get very many. The mint does buy them at full value by weight but they have to be delivered in New York, I believe. The shipping costs on pennies far outweigh their value especially since they are counted as being all copper. The cost of segregating nickels is pretty high so they buy a lot of mixed clad and cu/ni at a reduced price. Somebody is always out the cost of shipping so I suspect it's primarily the counting houses that redeem coin and they all have their equipment set on passing almost anything that's the right general size and shape. This way they don't take the loss of shipping it. A lot of redeemed coins come from muninciple incinerators which have no real overhead cost and the coins are pure profit. I see a lot of horrible culls that have obviously had a lot of circulation. There are bent coins with a lot of wear on the parts that project upward from the surface. The most common are corroded coins or acid treated. It does seem there has been some general improvement in the coinage in the last three or four years but the number of numismatic culls is continuing to increase. These are things that don't impede the ability to go through counters but make the coin too ugly to be collectible. Mostly it's scratches and gouges but also there are heavy marks or spot corrosion. Clad was designed specifically to make a good alloy when melted to turn into nickels. It's mixed about 50: 50 with nickel to make 5c pieces. While very large percentages of the clad coinage is gone forever very little of it percentagewise has been melted by the mint. I've never seen a number for it and have tried. My understanding is most of the coin they get is just in horrible shape like it came out of an incinerator or Niagra Falls. I will ask my local bank the next time I'm in. If there's anything I'll post it.
Oh, And nickels are the same composition as the outside of the clads so can be used unalloyed to make clad strip.
Wow. Talk about coincidence. I just happened to have a few rolls of quarters sitting around so I went through them. I didn't notice that they've been culling the coinage thelast few years. I guess I was too close to it to really see. There was only a single coin that was bad enough it might be rejected by a finely tuned counter. It was a 1980-D with a heavy punch in the center of the obverse that distorted it a little. There are a lot of culls which affect about 10% of the '99 and later and nearly 40% of the pre-1979. These are the minor culls though rather than the big problems. Perhaps most telling is 55% are states issues. A mere 44.8% are the old eagle reverse coins! This is the biggest percentage of the new coins I've ever seen and might imply that they really are trying to clean up the circulating coins. There are a few remarkable collector coins in the bunch but this is mere coincidence.
I believe that the fairly high percentage of quarters being 'state' quarters is simply due to the fact that so darn many state quarters were made and not to any special efforts to cull worn ones. I still wonder how many quarters are now in Fed and USTreasury 'vault' storage (also how many years' estimated supply it is) as I am still seeing large numbers of AU early-date state quarters in circulation here and production of the 'America the Beautiful' series is microscopic. I just saw a very large number of uncirculated DELAWARE state quarters in cash drawers here in the Appleton, WI area over the past couple of weeks. Mike
What I think is happening is that everybody has realized that the state quarters aren't special at all and have no premium. Therefore, they have spent the quarters that they have hoarded over the last ten years.
Seems all the State Quarters I get in change are abused, worn, dirty and beaten all to **** for the most part. I like them though, it's an easy collection to obtain in uncirculated condition for rather cheap. I have both an uncirculated and circulated collection of them all.
Hmmm... this is interesting. I am sure I am not the only one who enjoys worn looking coins I wonder if any banks will sell me their cull collections... lol! I hate damaged or ugly coins, but the more simple wear they have, the better, IMO <3
Everything but silver bullion for sure and I think even silver commems. and proofs all get brand new silver. Even before the high prices. They won't even melt bars or rounds down for reuse.
This is found on the US Mint's web site - http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/index.cfm?action=coin_specifications
This coin has definitely seen better days. Looks like it got in a fight with a barrel of rocks rolling down a hill for a few days.
