I was watching the Coin Vault tonight and they had this awesome error coin with a Lincoln cent on a dime planchet and they were selling in a NGC holder in MS-67 and it was over $1700! This has got me to think...why not have clad cents? Copper gets too dark with age and green spots. David
We already have copper clad zinc cents. Cu/ ni clad copper would be prohibitively expensive. The cents probably already cost close to a cent and a half to produce and their days are numbered.
$$$$$$$$ Circulation coins are not produced to please collectors, and it would cost more to make clad cents than it does to make the current copper plated zinc coins - somewhere in the vicinity of 20-billion this century alone!
I find that copper coins are amongst the dirtiest coins. Plus they tend to get really dark. And occasionally see the green spotting. Maybe the coinage should be the same colour too. Maybe in 2009 we'll see something different... David
Isn't it expensive then too for other clad coinage? If copper is so much cheaper, why not have copper halves, quarters, dimes, etc..? David
It's the value of the coin - 1 cent - that's all the Mint can sell it for to the Federal Reserve. That's the factor that makes it too expensive. The other coins still cost less to make than their face value.
What GDJMSP said. Also, remember we haven't had any copper coins since the 1982 changeover from pure copper cents to copper-plated zinc cents.
Actually, the last year of issue, of any significance, for a pure copper US coin, was 1857. The later issued cents of 1864, through the early issues of 1982, were a copper alloy, commonly known as bronze.
