It costs 7 cents to mint a nickel. Scientists may have a solution

This was an interesting read-
So i thought i would share

https://qz.com/1316940/us-nickels-cost-seven-cents-to-make-scientists-may-have-a-solution/

 

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I just chuckled at a few words used in this story.. engraved? printed?

"Nickels also have to have a specific hardness: soft enough to be engraved"

"In less than a year, they were able to come up with a metal mixture that mimics exactly everything about nickels as we currently know them and print prototypes."

"But if the Mint were able to scale up NIST’s model alloy, they’d likely save millions on printing these tiny coins every year."

 

Here is another story by the same person.. but look at the coins she used in the picture.. Euros!
https://qz.com/1318203/making-pennies-costs-the-us-mint-millions/

 

Do people not understand when looking at the per unit cost of producing a coin - such as the nickel or cent - included in the cost of producing that coin is its share of the general operating cost of the Mint itself. Costs the Mint will continue to incur whether these coins are produced or not. And if not produced these cost will allocated across all the other coinage being produced - causing their per unit cost of production to increase.

The accounting method used to allocate these sunk cost to the production of different coinage and how much the production of the nickel and cent absorb - I don't know. If these costs are allocated based on the number of units produced - the cost absorbed could be significant. If allocated based on monetary value - not so much.

 

1) Quartz.com is written by idiots.
2) CarTech Inc. of Reading, PA has been working with the Mint on a brand new stainless steel alloy for the five cent coin for MANY years now. This is NOT news.

 

Ah well, those are stock photos. Usually it is not the author of such an article who adds them, but some editor. I find the use of such material pretty normal, especially since we have similar issues here in the euro area ...

Christian

 

The profit they are making on dimes and quarters more than makes up for the 7 cent nickel.
I thought this article was already linked in another thread?

 

You are much too complicated for these concrete heads who write this paid-by-the-word swill for Internet sites.

 

It would have been very funny if the article just said “Stop making them.”.

 

Unlike countries that got rid of their 5 cents - Hong Kong and New Zealand comes to mind, this is not a simple matter of running prices up or down. US and Canada are probably the last few countries that continue to use quarters.

Getting rid of the nickel is not an option - imagine if you bought something that's 95 cents and paid in 4 quarters - you still want your nickel. I suppose you can do a bit of rounding too but quarters can still play a havoc.

 

Have to give them five quarters and get back three dimes.