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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;john65999, post: 7902245, member: 111931&quot;]<b>It is not illegal to</b> melt, form, destroy, or otherwise modify US coins, including pennies, unless the objective is fraudulent or with the intent of selling the raw materials of the coins for profit. Projects that use coins as materials are entirely legal in the United States.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>It is not illegal to deface coins</b> BUT they can no longer be used anywhere for currency or you would be breaking the law. It is perfectly legal to drill a small hole in a nickel, paint a quarter, or bend a penny if you want.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Sometimes. According to Title 18, U. S. C. section 331, it is illegal to &quot;fraudulently alter, deface, mutilate, impair, diminish, falsify, scale, or lighten any of the coins coined at the mints of the United States, or any foreign coins which are by law made current or are in actual use or circulation as money within the United States&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>The issue with this is what &quot;fraudulently&quot; exactly means. According to the US mint itself, &quot;the mere act of compressing coins into souvenirs is not illegal, without other factors being present&quot; because it probably doesn&#039;t entail fraudulent intent (<a href="http://www.parkpennies.com/pressed-penny/penny-pressing-legal.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.parkpennies.com/pressed-penny/penny-pressing-legal.htm" rel="nofollow">Legal to press pennies or other coins?</a>)</p><p><br /></p><p>The case remains however, that most of the activities that would involve destroying pennies are illegal, and that flattening them for souvenirs is an exception. In particular, when I first read this question I thought it was about the possibility of melting pennies and selling the metal for more than the value of the pennies (since it seems pennies are worth more than $0.01 in metal). This is very probably illegal because it should be fairly easy to argue that this is a fraudulent activity.</p><p><br /></p><p>i hope this helps for all those who are fraid of bending a coin or two[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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