Should the United States bring back the 2-cent piece?

Discussion in 'US Coins Forum' started by dbblsanta, Oct 20, 2007.

  1. Aberlight

    Aberlight New Member

    A solution to this would be leave all electronic transactions alone and not rounding, but for change purposes round up or down.
     
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  3. TheBigH

    TheBigH Senior Member

    It's necessary because if every purchase were rounded up 5 cents, that would cause a substantial loss for either the consumer or supplier over time. But a better question would be, how could leaving the penny in circulation damage the economy? The metal can be changed to something cheaper, and when (if) that metal also becomes too pricey, then perhaps the U.S. will have no choice to remove the cent from general circulation, but as it is now, there's absolutely no reason eliminating the cent would be beneficial or necessary. The removal of pennies from circulation seems to be an anarchist-esque suggestion.

    Also, to the pushers of precious metal money, I don't think silver coins would be remotely feasible. The prices of precious metals change wildly every day. I believe that rather than actually making all the money from silver, all money should be redeemable for silver. $1 in silver doesn't change. It doesn't matter if silver is $13 and ounce or $1,000 an ounce, it's still $1 in silver.
     
  4. Brennn10

    Brennn10 Coins =

    I have enough trouble searching through pennies, I don't think I need a 2-cent piece!

    Haha, but no its not a good idea.
     
  5. rotobeast

    rotobeast Old Newbie

    Nooooooooooooo !!

    I'm not giving strippers 2 bucks !
    :D
     
  6. SapperNurse

    SapperNurse DOD enhanced

    The two local clubs here give all of their change in $2 bills now.....Inflation must be hitting the girls hard :rolling:
     
  7. kanga

    kanga 65 Year Collector

    My terminology might not have been correct.
    By "nickel breakage" I mean round down to 0 if a price ends in 1 or 2, round up to 5 if it ends in 3 or 4.
    Round down to 5 if a price ends in 6 or 7, round up to 0 if it ends in 8 or 9.
    And the rounding occurs only after all items have been totaled together.
    It will tend to balance out in the long run (actually not quite because of the shopping habits of Americans, but close enough.)
     
  8. kanga

    kanga 65 Year Collector

    Use the dollar coins.
    You can flip them from your seat rather than walking alllllllll the way up to the stage.
    (Or did I miss the point :D)
     
  9. rotobeast

    rotobeast Old Newbie

    LOL

    I've flipped change onto the stage.
    It's usually when a girl is ugly or a really bad dancer and I flip pennies/cents.
     
  10. dreamer94

    dreamer94 Coin Collector

    I think these differences would most likely even out after a while. You'd get charged a couple of cents less as often as you'd get charged more.

    I save all the change I get; I never reuse it, and in the year or so since I last emptied it, the cent coins don't amount to more than a couple of dollars. That's all I would have potentially lost by not having pennies and it doesn't count what I might have saved.
     
  11. jimmyrules712

    jimmyrules712 Member

    the 1 cent now is worth less then the 1/2 cent was work back in the 19th century, and when they dropped that and rounded everything to the 1 cent there weren't any big problems....

    Keep in mind that with each transaction you do the amouint you owe for something is already being rounded. You may actually owe $31.4689 with taxes applied, but they round it to $31.47. Back in the day that extra cent was a lot! But they survived...

    Small rounding like that has very little effect. You might lose like a dollar over the course of a year (I doubt even that)...more then that will be saved in tax money from not minting the coins.
     
  12. Daggarjon

    Daggarjon Supporter**

    I would not like the cent abolished. I understand the need to move to a higher denomination for our lowest coin, but would hate to see it done. But if it were, a 2-cent coin, would be cool. Moving to a 2 or 3-cent coin would help satisfy the need to round anything - at most you might only lose 1 cent on a transaction... or one could gain a cent.

    We all have our thoughts on either keeping or obolishing the cent coin, in the end, it will happen, the Govt will just have no choice. They cant keep minting copper laced coins, and aluminum was looked at 20+ years ago and was denied. Whats left, a copper laced cent with a large square hole?

    the cent will soon :vanish:
     
  13. coleguy

    coleguy Coin Collector

    How do these things always get turned into a debate on what currency is obsolete or not? If we want to play that game, and if the government listened, through the years the hobby would have been prety lame. The 3 cent coin, half dime, twenty cent coin, most half dollars from 1798 to present, Morgans, and lincolns through 3/4 of it's run....are just a few examples of coins that were obsolete from day one. They were never vital to commerce, but we sure appreciate them today.

    So yeah...lets all rag on the things we collect and take away from future generations the foundations of the hobby. thats the spirit.
    Guy~
     
  14. 900fine

    900fine doggone it people like me

    The idea of getting rid of the penny is complex, but minting a 2c piece is simple: NO WAY.

    It would be unpopular; like a $2 bill. Heck, even 50c don't circulate.
     
  15. dreamer94

    dreamer94 Coin Collector

    I don't think we need to worry that the people who make these decisions listen to US! Eliminating the dollar bill would be good for coin collectors because it would ensure the viability of dollar coins for the future. It might not be so good for currency collectors.
     
  16. dbblsanta

    dbblsanta Member

    I think people are missing my point. The Mint makes more pennies each year than all other denominations combined. The Mint makes very little profit from this, if any. What I'm saying is take the current mintage of pennies: devote 3/4 of that to minting 2 cent pieces, a coin that is worth twice the amount of the penny (and hence the government might actually make money minting them). The remaining 1/4 will remain pennies.

    Unlike the 1/2 dollar coin, people will be forced to use the 2 cent coins because the pennies won't be there. If the government seriously reduced its mintage of quarters, then people would also be forced to use halves. There will be an insufficient number of pennies needed for circulation that there would be a serious penny shortage if businesses didn't use the 2 cent piece. Or, if people abandon the 2 cent piece, nobody will use 2 cent pieces OR pennies, and the prices would be rounded to the nearest nickel anyway, which is a policy many here seem to advocate. The consumers would decide.

    This idea is meant to be an alternative to the "keep the penny/abolish the penny" debate. It's a third option that I think could be very viable.

    P.S. To the poster who suggested a 3 cent coin: that would be not cool. Do you know how hard that would be to make change counting by threes? Because 10 is not a multiple or factor of 3, it would just be too difficult.
     
  17. Conder101

    Conder101 Numismatist

    Correct, todays cent is has a puchasing power of believe it or not 1/25th the purchasing power the half cent had when it was decided that it was no longer worth making. To do the the equivilent today we would have to eliminate the cent, nickel, dime and quarter and round everything to the nearest half dollar. That is basicly what they did back in 1857. Why do we need a coin worth so little it would take 25 of them to equal what a half cent used to buy.
     
  18. TheBigH

    TheBigH Senior Member

    I see some are suggesting the elimination of the dollar bill to help the economy. That is also a completely ridiculous suggestion, mainly because dollar bills cost less than dollar coins to make.
     
  19. Conder101

    Conder101 Numismatist

    But the dollar coins last longer. Over the lifespan of the coin you would have to replace the paper dollar so many times that it would actually cost more than the face value of the bill while you only have to pay for the coin once.
     
  20. Coinlover

    Coinlover The Coin Collector

    the dollar coin cost the government 6 cents to make. so thats a 94 cent profit for every dollar coin they make. and it last 30 years or so before it gets worn out. a dollar bill only lasts a year and a half and cost the government alot more than the coins do. but could you imagine carrying a 8 gram coin in your pocket instead of a light as a feather dollar bill. it would make it easier on the government, but harder on the people. thats why i think they still make $ bills
     
  21. cladking

    cladking Coin Collector


    We have a coin that costys more to produce than it's worth. Every time it is handled and counted it costs more than it is wort. It's not worth the time of the person running it through the counter or the electricity to run it. It produces polution and robs Americans of their time and tiny pieces of their lives. It wears out the roads as trucks rumble over them laden with coins going to the banks or coming from the mint.

    We are telling future generations that coins mean nothing. We are telling them that we are so set in our ways that we can't even adapt to the simplest change. We are telling future generations that we can waste out resources and pollute the planet using coins as our weapon for political expediency.
     
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