@JBK said:
I always hear about the elimination of the half cent but I've never really heard why they stopped minting it.
The reference in a post above to its final mintage in 1857 caused a small epiphany: the cent was being shrunk down considerably in size, and a copper coin half it's size would been impractical.
I'm not sure if that was the specific reason for it's elimination, but it would make sense to me.
(I know, there was the three cent silver and the gold dollar, but silver and gold were different).
1857 was the last year that the Spanish Real (1/8 of a dollar or 12 1/2 cents) was legal tender in the U.S. There would be no need to make change for coins that were no longer legal tender after 1857.
But the large size made it too costly as well, as copper prices rose due to growing demand from the railways.
Collector and dealer in obsolete currency. Always buying all obsolete bank notes and scrip.
You penned the “Numismatists’ Manifesto”.
I need a struggle now.
I’m headed down to the liquor store to shake down that damn cashier at the who boasts about the 90% silver he reaps from the public.
@DoubleEagle59 said:
Smart move for the current administration to stop producing the cent.
The smart part is certainly to stop making them until the existing inventory gets low. Then they can make them again.
they cost more to make than they're worth, and most people wouldn't even stop to pick one up off the ground. It's absurd they weren't cancelled sooner.
If only someone would invent a MAGICAL Card that you can use to pay all your bills,,,,,,, that takes the money directly from your bank account,,,,,,,,then we would not need any coins or bills at all,,,,,
I haven’t had a chance to read the other people’s responses, but if that actually ever happens let’s use this as an opportunity to legally start making our own one cent tokens CWT style. Like Dan Carr can be a great “Die Sinker” sort of thing. Let’s offer businesses the chance to purchase copper “1 cent off coupons” sort of thing with an ad for their store cleverly weaved seamlessly into all the different style Lincoln’s, Indian Heads, large cent soft of thing.
Maybe even have a scannable bar code woven into the design of about 1% of them that’s an “Easter egg” style legal raffle where you win an “off metal” one that’s a rare valuable collectable containing X% of precious metal, much cooler than a silly “privy mark”….
@GRANDAM said:
If only someone would invent a MAGICAL Card that you can use to pay all your bills,,,,,,, that takes the money directly from your bank account,,,,,,,,then we would not need any coins or bills at all,,,,,
LOL
It's called a debit card
But I prefer a credit card, debit cards are not protected like a credit card
I don't use cash anything, haven't for years
And a credit card you can keep better track of your spending too, your get a statement every month and you pay it off.
That's the right way to use a credit card
PS, I know, it was a joke.................
@GRANDAM said:
If only someone would invent a MAGICAL Card that you can use to pay all your bills,,,,,,, that takes the money directly from your bank account,,,,,,,,then we would not need any coins or bills at all,,,,,
LOL
It's called a debit card
But I prefer a credit card, debit cards are not protected like a credit card
I don't use cash anything, haven't for years
And a credit card you can keep better track of your spending too, your get a statement every month and you pay it off.
That's the right way to use a credit card
PS, I know, it was a joke.................
Agree. Also, many cards will give you a rebate which can be used to buy more coins.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
@Mr_Spud said:
I haven’t had a chance to read the other people’s responses, but if that actually ever happens let’s use this as an opportunity to legally start making our own one cent tokens CWT style. Like Dan Carr can be a great “Die Sinker” sort of thing. Let’s offer businesses the chance to purchase copper “1 cent off coupons” sort of thing with an ad for their store cleverly weaved seamlessly into all the different style Lincoln’s, Indian Heads, large cent soft of thing.
Maybe even have a scannable bar code woven into the design of about 1% of them that’s an “Easter egg” style legal raffle where you win an “off metal” one that’s a rare valuable collectable containing X% of precious metal, much cooler than a silly “privy mark”….
🤔
How much is a company going to pay? Custom tokens will be expensive.
@GRANDAM said:
If only someone would invent a MAGICAL Card that you can use to pay all your bills,,,,,,, that takes the money directly from your bank account,,,,,,,,then we would not need any coins or bills at all,,,,,
LOL
It's called a debit card
But I prefer a credit card, debit cards are not protected like a credit card
I don't use cash anything, haven't for years
And a credit card you can keep better track of your spending too, your get a statement every month and you pay it off.
That's the right way to use a credit card
PS, I know, it was a joke.................
I prefer peer-to-peer solutions with no 3rd party involvement.
@GRANDAM said:
If only someone would invent a MAGICAL Card that you can use to pay all your bills,,,,,,, that takes the money directly from your bank account,,,,,,,,then we would not need any coins or bills at all,,,,,
LOL
It's called a debit card
But I prefer a credit card, debit cards are not protected like a credit card
I don't use cash anything, haven't for years
And a credit card you can keep better track of your spending too, your get a statement every month and you pay it off.
That's the right way to use a credit card
PS, I know, it was a joke.................
I prefer peer-to-peer solutions with no 3rd party involvement.
@JBK said:
I always hear about the elimination of the half cent but I've never really heard why they stopped minting it.
The reference in a post above to its final mintage in 1857 caused a small epiphany: the cent was being shrunk down considerably in size, and a copper coin half it's size would been impractical.
I'm not sure if that was the specific reason for it's elimination, but it would make sense to me.
(I know, there was the three cent silver and the gold dollar, but silver and gold were different).
The half cent and large cent were eliminated in large part because they were no longer profitable to make due to increased copper prices and the public wanted a smaller cent coin, which ended up being very popular.
While we are again in a cost issue, cents are now so poor quality with the copper plated zinc. Copper plated steel is much higher quality as shown by the Canadian mint, although they quit making cents in 2012 anyway.
Both the cent and the nickel cost more to make than their face value. Letem go!
Eliminte the Lincoln cent and bring back an aluminum version of the Indian head cent.
Collector of Buffalo Nickels and other 20th century United States Coinage a.k.a "The BUFFINATOR"
Nobody is collecting modern Lincoln cents because they want to. They are pretty much useless in everyday commerce. The government should have ended production of the cent many, MANY years ago.
@FranklinHalfAddict said:
Nobody is collecting modern Lincoln cents because they want to. They are pretty much useless in everyday commerce. The government should have ended production of the cent many, MANY years ago.
Then why are they still produced to meet businesses' demand? If they were truly useless and truly unwanted then they would die on the vine. They are minted because there is a demand.
Should people or businesses want them? That's a matter of opinion. But there is a demand for them which is why they are minted.
@FranklinHalfAddict said:
Nobody is collecting modern Lincoln cents because they want to. They are pretty much useless in everyday commerce. The government should have ended production of the cent many, MANY years ago.
Then why are they still produced to meet businesses' demand? If they were truly useless and truly unwanted then they would die on the vine. They are minted because there is a demand.
Should people or businesses want them? That's a matter of opinion. But there is a demand for them which is why they are minted.
This is actually not true the way you say it. The LACK of demand in commercial use by customers actually creates a shortage because they don't get back to the banks. They end up in jars and parking lots.
@FranklinHalfAddict said:
Nobody is collecting modern Lincoln cents because they want to. They are pretty much useless in everyday commerce. The government should have ended production of the cent many, MANY years ago.
Then why are they still produced to meet businesses' demand? If they were truly useless and truly unwanted then they would die on the vine. They are minted because there is a demand.
Should people or businesses want them? That's a matter of opinion. But there is a demand for them which is why they are minted.
This is actually not true the way you say it. The LACK of demand in commercial use by customers actually creates a shortage because they don't get back to the banks. They end up in jars and parking lots.
I've said it many times and you've even started saying it yourself, as well: cents are minted to meet demand. How you parse that demand isn't really important to that fact.
If people didn't want cents in change then they'd refuse them. If that happened often enough, businesses might stop ordering them from the banks. If that happened, mintages would plummet.
Clearly for most people cents are a nuisance or at best an inconvenience, so they toss them into jars or bowls or cup holders, or even trash cans. Eventually many of those hoards end up I'm a Coinstar or bank change machine.
But the beat goes on at the cash register, hence the high mintages.
@GRANDAM said:
If only someone would invent a MAGICAL Card that you can use to pay all your bills,,,,,,, that takes the money directly from your bank account,,,,,,,,then we would not need any coins or bills at all,,,,,
LOL
It's called a debit card
But I prefer a credit card, debit cards are not protected like a credit card
I don't use cash anything, haven't for years
And a credit card you can keep better track of your spending too, your get a statement every month and you pay it off.
That's the right way to use a credit card
PS, I know, it was a joke.................
I prefer peer-to-peer solutions with no 3rd party involvement.
@Mr_Spud said:
I haven’t had a chance to read the other people’s responses, but if that actually ever happens let’s use this as an opportunity to legally start making our own one cent tokens CWT style. Like Dan Carr can be a great “Die Sinker” sort of thing. Let’s offer businesses the chance to purchase copper “1 cent off coupons” sort of thing with an ad for their store cleverly weaved seamlessly into all the different style Lincoln’s, Indian Heads, large cent soft of thing.
Maybe even have a scannable bar code woven into the design of about 1% of them that’s an “Easter egg” style legal raffle where you win an “off metal” one that’s a rare valuable collectable containing X% of precious metal, much cooler than a silly “privy mark”….
🤔
How much is a company going to pay? Custom tokens will be expensive.
To reduce cost, perhaps the base ones worth 1 cent could be made of plastic, the “Easter egg” ones would be made out of precious metal by D. Carr or a similar Die Sinker 🌞
Obviously the cent was long overdue to have production ceased, but what the treasury could have done is offered some type of buyback program to pull in the existing cents from mason jars and piggy banks.
If it costs 3.8 cents all in with distribution, they could have offered banks 2 cents for every box of Lincolns that they did NOT have to order. There would have been plenty of meat in the bone for banks to supply coin machines that could offer customers 1.3 -1.5 cents per coin with this temporary buyback program.
No one is motivated to cash in change with the lack of coin counting machines and requirements to hand roll them from banks. Not to mention coinstar fees, which assuredly prevent many from using them. There’s an estimated 300 BILLION cents out in the wild, if even 10% were recovered with the proposed buyback, the difference could save the treasury over $500 mil in production costs.
@PeakRarities said:
Obviously the cent was long overdue to have production ceased, but what the treasury could have done is offered some type of buyback program to pull in the existing cents from mason jars and piggy banks.
If it costs 3.8 cents all in with distribution, they could have offered banks 2 cents for every box of Lincolns that they did NOT have to order. There would have been plenty of meat in the bone for banks to supply coin machines that could offer customers 1.3 -1.5 cents per coin with this temporary buyback program.
No one is motivated to cash in change with the lack of coin counting machines and requirements to hand roll them from banks. Not to mention coinstar fees, which assuredly prevent many from using them. There’s an estimated 300 BILLION cents out in the wild, if even 10% were recovered with the proposed buyback, the difference could save the treasury over $500 mil in production costs.
Dan, I'm missing something here.
The problem is with the cost of producing the cent, I believe the actually cost of the material used to make the cent is still under a cent. The cost then raises when you add the cost of production and transportation.
What would be the advantage of the mint taking them back when the cost has already been lost?
Obviously the cent was long overdue to have production ceased, but what the treasury could have done is offered some type of buyback program to pull in the existing cents from mason jars and piggy banks.
If it costs 3.8 cents all in with distribution, they could have offered banks 2 cents for every box of Lincolns that they did NOT have to order. There would have been plenty of meat in the bone for banks to supply coin machines that could offer customers 1.3 -1.5 cents per coin with this temporary buyback program.
No one is motivated to cash in change with the lack of coin counting machines and requirements to hand roll them from banks. Not to mention coinstar fees, which assuredly prevent many from using them. There’s an estimated 300 BILLION cents out in the wild, if even 10% were recovered with the proposed buyback, the difference could save the treasury over $500 mil in production costs.
There's an idea. There's plenty of cents in existence I believe, it's not like they've all been worn to nothing, lost, destroyed, and/or disbursed to the winds, the challenge is bringing them out. The answer is probably to subsidize Coinstar and any competitors to waive fees on cents or even provide a bonus and a small national advertising effort to bring out the hidden stocks and hoards.
I got a case of pennies from bank last week and so far searched 20 rolls. Out of 1000 pennies, I had 113 copper cents and 7 wheat cents.
Cases and rolls of 2025 pennies are bringing big money on ebay.
@Cameonut said:
I wonder if we had such consternation when we eliminated the half cent, the three cent, and 20 cent pieces. I'm not old enough to remember.
There wasn't, but those coins did not have the collector base which the cent has.
Sorry, I don't have the last the Three Cent Pieces.
@FranklinHalfAddict said:
Nobody is collecting modern Lincoln cents because they want to. They are pretty much useless in everyday commerce. The government should have ended production of the cent many, MANY years ago.
Then why are they still produced to meet businesses' demand? If they were truly useless and truly unwanted then they would die on the vine. They are minted because there is a demand.
Should people or businesses want them? That's a matter of opinion. But there is a demand for them which is why they are minted.
This is actually not true the way you say it. The LACK of demand in commercial use by customers actually creates a shortage because they don't get back to the banks. They end up in jars and parking lots.
I've said it many times and you've even started saying it yourself, as well: cents are minted to meet demand. How you parse that demand isn't really important to that fact.
If people didn't want cents in change then they'd refuse them. If that happened often enough, businesses might stop ordering them from the banks. If that happened, mintages would plummet.
Clearly for most people cents are a nuisance or at best an inconvenience, so they toss them into jars or bowls or cup holders, or even trash cans. Eventually many of those hoards end up I'm a Coinstar or bank change machine.
But the beat goes on at the cash register, hence the high mintages.
People do refuse them. "Take a penny, leave a penny".
Businesses can't not have them until they are willing to round all change change up.
Cent production did peak in 2016. This is likely due to decreases in cash use more than rejection of cents. But it is hard to organically get to zero without some legislative/executive assistance.
What they might consider is paying 2 cents each to get people to turn them back in. They did this once in the 1970s when there was a shortage. That might incentivize people to recirculate their hoards.
Another contributing factor, in my opinion, is the disappearance of charity jars/containers at the checkout counters. They captured a lot of unwanted change before it left the store. I sometimes see options to round up the amount due for charity, but it's always rounding to the nearest dollar.
Here's another idea: charge twice or three times face value for boxes of new cents. When businesses have to pay a premium for new cents they'll start rounding the final total at the register down to the nearest nickel pretty quickly.
Personally I have no issues carrying change or currency. Real money feeling. If the cent/nickel are retired so be it. We will adapt. But having started coin collecting with the cent and nickel it is indicative that time matches on.
Successful transactions:Tookybandit. "Everyone is equal, some are more equal than others".
@PeakRarities said:
Obviously the cent was long overdue to have production ceased, but what the treasury could have done is offered some type of buyback program to pull in the existing cents from mason jars and piggy banks.
If it costs 3.8 cents all in with distribution, they could have offered banks 2 cents for every box of Lincolns that they did NOT have to order. There would have been plenty of meat in the bone for banks to supply coin machines that could offer customers 1.3 -1.5 cents per coin with this temporary buyback program.
No one is motivated to cash in change with the lack of coin counting machines and requirements to hand roll them from banks. Not to mention coinstar fees, which assuredly prevent many from using them. There’s an estimated 300 BILLION cents out in the wild, if even 10% were recovered with the proposed buyback, the difference could save the treasury over $500 mil in production costs.
Dan, I'm missing something here.
The problem is with the cost of producing the cent, I believe the actually cost of the material used to make the cent is still under a cent. The cost then raises when you add the cost of production and transportation.
What would be the advantage of the mint taking them back when the cost has already been lost?
According to Wikipedia, the actual PRODUCTION cost before factoring transportation is 3.8 cents. The advantage is that every cent recovered is one less new coin that needs to be minted. Even if it cost .02 to recover .01 we’d still be saving at least .018 per coin. Reported costs for reprocessing evidently pale in comparison to production.
Production at a loss – In 2024, it cost 3.69 cents to mint a penny.[11] With a 2022 production of an estimated 6,359,600,000 pennies, this results in an annual loss for the U.S. government of around $110 million.[12] Also, as the price of the raw materials from which the penny is made exceeds the face value, there is a risk that coins will be illegally melted down for raw materials.
Effort to transport and count – Approximately 47 percent of coins minted are pennies and all these pennies (generally over 5 billion annually) must be transported by secure and therefore expensive means from the Mint to banks and then on to stores.[17] Store employees spend valuable time counting low-value pennies at the end of a work shift. Banks often return loose coins on an armored truck to be sorted and wrapped so as to be ready to be given out to a customer. This process costs on the order of 10 cents per roll (a 20 percent charge on a roll of 50 pennies).”
Yeah, I posted this in another thread about the demise of the cent two days before Dan but was ignored by all except an "Lol" from @PerryHall
That's OK. But please take note.
I killed the other two threads by being the last word, let's see if you guys abandon this one, too. I gave you the correct answer a week ago. Dan and I have something here. Let's discuss it.
Oh, and by the way, I shouldn't take credit for this idea. I've seen several cent shortages since the 1970s. I don't believe that the government ever bought back cents at a premium (someone suggested that they did at 50% premium) but private business offered incentives to turn in cents. Burger King offered a free Whopper (maybe 99 cents at the time) for 500 redeemed cents. The idea of having the government buy back cents was suggested by someone during one of those previous cent shortages. I don't remember by whom or exactly when I first heard it but I haven't heard a good enough reason NOT to consider this since. So, please tell Dan and I why this won't at least help.
sellitstore Posts: 2,989 ✭✭✭✭✭February 20, 2025 3:56PM
So if the government started buying back cents at 2 cents each and nickels at 10 cents each the U.S. could save money AND make numismatists very happy. Let's do that.
Collector and dealer in obsolete currency. Always buying all obsolete bank notes and scrip.
Flag Quote · Agree Like 1LOL
Collector and dealer in obsolete currency. Always buying all obsolete bank notes and scrip.
Comments
There should be. There will also be business strikes from the other mints, or at least 240 million have been minted so far.
- Bob -
MPL's - Lincolns of Color
Central Valley Roosevelts
1857 was the last year that the Spanish Real (1/8 of a dollar or 12 1/2 cents) was legal tender in the U.S. There would be no need to make change for coins that were no longer legal tender after 1857.
But the large size made it too costly as well, as copper prices rose due to growing demand from the railways.
and the Ike.
The fiscal cost of minting cents outweighs your outrage
I'm BACK!!! Used to be Billet7 on the old forum.
That was good
I'm BACK!!! Used to be Billet7 on the old forum.
I'm going to guess that Roosevelt gets the boot and Lincoln will reside on the dime.
https://imdb.com/name/nm1835107/
You penned the “Numismatists’ Manifesto”.
I need a struggle now.
I’m headed down to the liquor store to shake down that damn cashier at the who boasts about the 90% silver he reaps from the public.
I'm sure there is a cheaper way to make coins, maybe a hard plastic or some composite, but would anyone collect them?
Smart move for the current administration to stop producing the cent.
"“Those who sacrifice liberty for security/safety deserve neither.“(Benjamin Franklin)
"I only golf on days that end in 'Y'" (DE59)
The smart part is certainly to stop making them until the existing inventory gets low. Then they can make them again.
http://ProofCollection.Net
they cost more to make than they're worth, and most people wouldn't even stop to pick one up off the ground. It's absurd they weren't cancelled sooner.
Coin Photographer and Videographer
https://www.youtube.com/@FriendlyEagle7
What inventory?
If only someone would invent a MAGICAL Card that you can use to pay all your bills,,,,,,, that takes the money directly from your bank account,,,,,,,,then we would not need any coins or bills at all,,,,,
I haven’t had a chance to read the other people’s responses, but if that actually ever happens let’s use this as an opportunity to legally start making our own one cent tokens CWT style. Like Dan Carr can be a great “Die Sinker” sort of thing. Let’s offer businesses the chance to purchase copper “1 cent off coupons” sort of thing with an ad for their store cleverly weaved seamlessly into all the different style Lincoln’s, Indian Heads, large cent soft of thing.
Maybe even have a scannable bar code woven into the design of about 1% of them that’s an “Easter egg” style legal raffle where you win an “off metal” one that’s a rare valuable collectable containing X% of precious metal, much cooler than a silly “privy mark”….
🤔
Mr_Spud
To clarify, yes this is satire
You mean the Sacagawea Dollar right? They stopped the Ike in 1978
Mike
My Indians
Danco Set
LOL
It's called a debit card
But I prefer a credit card, debit cards are not protected like a credit card
I don't use cash anything, haven't for years
And a credit card you can keep better track of your spending too, your get a statement every month and you pay it off.
That's the right way to use a credit card
PS, I know, it was a joke.................
Mike
My Indians
Danco Set
Agree. Also, many cards will give you a rebate which can be used to buy more coins.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Well, that’s what I mean. They stopped making the Ike and nobody lost their cool.
How much is a company going to pay? Custom tokens will be expensive.
I prefer peer-to-peer solutions with no 3rd party involvement.
http://ProofCollection.Net
How do you do a charge back?
The half cent and large cent were eliminated in large part because they were no longer profitable to make due to increased copper prices and the public wanted a smaller cent coin, which ended up being very popular.
While we are again in a cost issue, cents are now so poor quality with the copper plated zinc. Copper plated steel is much higher quality as shown by the Canadian mint, although they quit making cents in 2012 anyway.
We had SBA’s to celebrate, though.
But when they ended the SBA, there was a mass exodus to Canada...
Both the cent and the nickel cost more to make than their face value. Letem go!
Eliminte the Lincoln cent and bring back an aluminum version of the Indian head cent.
a.k.a "The BUFFINATOR"
Nobody is collecting modern Lincoln cents because they want to. They are pretty much useless in everyday commerce. The government should have ended production of the cent many, MANY years ago.
Then why are they still produced to meet businesses' demand? If they were truly useless and truly unwanted then they would die on the vine. They are minted because there is a demand.
Should people or businesses want them? That's a matter of opinion. But there is a demand for them which is why they are minted.
This is actually not true the way you say it. The LACK of demand in commercial use by customers actually creates a shortage because they don't get back to the banks. They end up in jars and parking lots.
I've said it many times and you've even started saying it yourself, as well: cents are minted to meet demand. How you parse that demand isn't really important to that fact.
If people didn't want cents in change then they'd refuse them. If that happened often enough, businesses might stop ordering them from the banks. If that happened, mintages would plummet.
Clearly for most people cents are a nuisance or at best an inconvenience, so they toss them into jars or bowls or cup holders, or even trash cans. Eventually many of those hoards end up I'm a Coinstar or bank change machine.
But the beat goes on at the cash register, hence the high mintages.
No risk of that, that's the beauty of it.
http://ProofCollection.Net
@j> @jmlanzaf said:
To reduce cost, perhaps the base ones worth 1 cent could be made of plastic, the “Easter egg” ones would be made out of precious metal by D. Carr or a similar Die Sinker 🌞
Mr_Spud
Obviously the cent was long overdue to have production ceased, but what the treasury could have done is offered some type of buyback program to pull in the existing cents from mason jars and piggy banks.
If it costs 3.8 cents all in with distribution, they could have offered banks 2 cents for every box of Lincolns that they did NOT have to order. There would have been plenty of meat in the bone for banks to supply coin machines that could offer customers 1.3 -1.5 cents per coin with this temporary buyback program.
No one is motivated to cash in change with the lack of coin counting machines and requirements to hand roll them from banks. Not to mention coinstar fees, which assuredly prevent many from using them. There’s an estimated 300 BILLION cents out in the wild, if even 10% were recovered with the proposed buyback, the difference could save the treasury over $500 mil in production costs.
Founder- Peak Rarities
Website
Instagram
Facebook
Dan, I'm missing something here.
The problem is with the cost of producing the cent, I believe the actually cost of the material used to make the cent is still under a cent. The cost then raises when you add the cost of production and transportation.
What would be the advantage of the mint taking them back when the cost has already been lost?
Mike
My Indians
Danco Set
@PeakRarities said:
There's an idea. There's plenty of cents in existence I believe, it's not like they've all been worn to nothing, lost, destroyed, and/or disbursed to the winds, the challenge is bringing them out. The answer is probably to subsidize Coinstar and any competitors to waive fees on cents or even provide a bonus and a small national advertising effort to bring out the hidden stocks and hoards.
http://ProofCollection.Net
I got a case of pennies from bank last week and so far searched 20 rolls. Out of 1000 pennies, I had 113 copper cents and 7 wheat cents.
Cases and rolls of 2025 pennies are bringing big money on ebay.
http://ProofCollection.Net
You always have the coolest type coins!
My YouTube Channel
People do refuse them. "Take a penny, leave a penny".
Businesses can't not have them until they are willing to round all change change up.
Cent production did peak in 2016. This is likely due to decreases in cash use more than rejection of cents. But it is hard to organically get to zero without some legislative/executive assistance.
What they might consider is paying 2 cents each to get people to turn them back in. They did this once in the 1970s when there was a shortage. That might incentivize people to recirculate their hoards.
Another contributing factor, in my opinion, is the disappearance of charity jars/containers at the checkout counters. They captured a lot of unwanted change before it left the store. I sometimes see options to round up the amount due for charity, but it's always rounding to the nearest dollar.
Here's another idea: charge twice or three times face value for boxes of new cents. When businesses have to pay a premium for new cents they'll start rounding the final total at the register down to the nearest nickel pretty quickly.
@AlbumNerd , @TomB and @WinLoseWin :
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
Personally I have no issues carrying change or currency. Real money feeling. If the cent/nickel are retired so be it. We will adapt. But having started coin collecting with the cent and nickel it is indicative that time matches on.
According to Wikipedia, the actual PRODUCTION cost before factoring transportation is 3.8 cents. The advantage is that every cent recovered is one less new coin that needs to be minted. Even if it cost .02 to recover .01 we’d still be saving at least .018 per coin. Reported costs for reprocessing evidently pale in comparison to production.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_debate_in_the_United_States
“Production and distribution costs
Production at a loss – In 2024, it cost 3.69 cents to mint a penny.[11] With a 2022 production of an estimated 6,359,600,000 pennies, this results in an annual loss for the U.S. government of around $110 million.[12] Also, as the price of the raw materials from which the penny is made exceeds the face value, there is a risk that coins will be illegally melted down for raw materials.
Effort to transport and count – Approximately 47 percent of coins minted are pennies and all these pennies (generally over 5 billion annually) must be transported by secure and therefore expensive means from the Mint to banks and then on to stores.[17] Store employees spend valuable time counting low-value pennies at the end of a work shift. Banks often return loose coins on an armored truck to be sorted and wrapped so as to be ready to be given out to a customer. This process costs on the order of 10 cents per roll (a 20 percent charge on a roll of 50 pennies).”
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Yeah, I posted this in another thread about the demise of the cent two days before Dan but was ignored by all except an "Lol" from @PerryHall
That's OK. But please take note.
I killed the other two threads by being the last word, let's see if you guys abandon this one, too. I gave you the correct answer a week ago. Dan and I have something here. Let's discuss it.
Oh, and by the way, I shouldn't take credit for this idea. I've seen several cent shortages since the 1970s. I don't believe that the government ever bought back cents at a premium (someone suggested that they did at 50% premium) but private business offered incentives to turn in cents. Burger King offered a free Whopper (maybe 99 cents at the time) for 500 redeemed cents. The idea of having the government buy back cents was suggested by someone during one of those previous cent shortages. I don't remember by whom or exactly when I first heard it but I haven't heard a good enough reason NOT to consider this since. So, please tell Dan and I why this won't at least help.
sellitstore Posts: 2,989 ✭✭✭✭✭February 20, 2025 3:56PM
So if the government started buying back cents at 2 cents each and nickels at 10 cents each the U.S. could save money AND make numismatists very happy. Let's do that.
Collector and dealer in obsolete currency. Always buying all obsolete bank notes and scrip.
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chopmarkedtradedollars.com
Sometime in the 1970s the US Treasury did send you a nice certificate of appreciation if you turned in $25 worth of cents, $5 if you were a kid.
I still have mine somewhere.