While us roll hunters ponder why there are less and less Memorial cents in our searching, the newly released mintage totals for this year should tell part of the story. So far approx. 1 billion cents have been produced between both Mints. So I guess there is probably some truth in that the government is starting to recall the older coins. I know my own searches are turning up less Memorials than ever this new year. What say you?
Is 1 bill total typical? If it's less, does that necessarily mean there's a recall effort for older cents?
Only 1 billion? Look at the mintages for past years. It's usually a lot more than that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_cent_mintage_figures
I do think that the weight difference between copper and zinc is more than sufficient for a scale to be used to pull out the heavier, copper coins. The government will spend thousands to make hundreds and justify the costs. In addition to the government pulling the copper coins out of circulation so am I, one at a time. I have $25.00 in pennies waiting for me to go through them. I sell the copper rolls for $1.00 a roll. I have fun and make money at the same time. With 1 billion minted in 4 months, we should have 3 plus billion by year's end. They need to capture that copper to coat that many pennies.
The advent of widespread electronic transactions has to have impacted the need for Cents, I should think.
This doesn't make sense. The economy doesn't appear to be slowing and I've heard of no large effort to round to the nearest nickel. Maybe they just want to see how few they can mint before a shortage develops. They lose lots of money on these so cutting productions is the sensible thing to do. I'm guessing they are "gearing up" to stop production altogether. They are just emptying the pipeline of zinc and supplies. The penny won't die with a bang but with a whimper heard through all time. Every time someone looks at a 2016 cent they will be reminded of the era that waste was elevated to to the common good.
I don't know but the Mint has sure been pumping out shield cents at an alarming rate considering they lose money on them. The number of shield's in boxes has been increasing based on my searching. I'm waiting for the day where a typical box is mostly shields.
With the staggeringly high attrition rate on zincs and people pulling coppers from circulation that day could come quite soon. But I do believe the country or someone will come to their senses before this actually happens and stop cent production. There have been some statements made by the mint recently to the effect they don't believe they are required to mint cents just as they aren't required to mint dollars dfor circulation now. As I understand it they are correct. Congress only mandates what they can mint rather than what they must. Cessation of cent production would have a major impact on the general public who still uses cash. It would not go unnoticed.
I read the other day somewhere that the Federal Reserve wants to suspend production of the penny. I hope they do since all the new ones are watering down the supply of older ones.
No, not neccesarily a reason to recall older cents but as was mentioned where I did not, the totals for the past 5 years have been awfully high for a coin that a lot of people do not want, except maybe for us collectors and searchers.
Thanks for mentioning that, I was getting a bit too tired to go into any detail. Even more reason for my presumption as do we really need this many coins when the cost is so high to produce them. I thought maybe there might be a recall to melt them down do offset some of this cost?
Agree 100%. On the attrition rate...just read a story the other day about a collector opening some rolls, not finding anything, so they dumped all those back into circulation. Memorial cents are dropping from existence via multiple pathways, it's a slow process by the numbers, but we are seeing solid evidence now IMO. The Shield cents are on their way to dominance in circulation.
The pumping of Shield cents substantiates that theory. While the Mint discloses a cost of 1.7 cents to manufacture, that doesn't factor in distribution costs. Think about the resources involved in moving billions of pennies around: mint>Fed>processing house (rolling/boxing)>banks>merchants Consider the whole process of distribution and what is involved. I'm sure the actual cost is substantially more than 1.7 cents. I believe they are "pumping the system" in preparation for the end.
I don't believe the Mint is taking in copper cents unless they are taken in from the mutilation program. What we're seeing is attrition in copper cents exacerbated by the increased value of copper. My theory is that the attrition rate is directly proportional to the value of copper. Right now, there's plenty of cheap copper on the market. I don't see the Mint melting coins to make copper plating at all, regardless, they are not in that business as a third party makes the planchets. Chinese demand has been down so supplies caught up, that's why it's so much lower today. Melting coins for copper is probably a losing game right now considering the costs involved.
And what of our Canadian Brethren? Have cents disappeared in the northern climes? Gazzillions upon millions. Will we be ever rid of the pestilence?
