President Trump has just ordered the mint to stop making pennies!

In before someone says the thread will be locked.

@blitzdude said:

@DNADave said:
Good news. Time to stop wasting money.

Heck yeah, retailers can proceed to just round everything up......and they will (more than a couple of pennies). Instant inflation. RGDS!

is that your chicken? THKS!

Another mindless and repetitive thread, one of dozens on this topic, and not just today. Time for another nap, evidently a long one.

@erscolo said:
Another mindless and repetitive thread, one of dozens on this topic, and not just today. Time for another nap, evidently a long one.

We might be rounding to the quarter by the time you wake up.

@COCollector said:
"The latest U.S. Mint report suggests the nickel better watch its back, too. Each 5-cent piece costs the Mint 13.78 cents to make."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/trump-takes-aim-at-wasteful-government-spending-by-ordering-end-to-penny-production/ar-AA1yKMea?ocid=BingNewsSerp

I don’t recall the mint exploring cheaper ways to make the 5-cent coin like they did with the ‘penny’ on many occasions over the years. Could a nickel plated zinc coin be a cheaper option for the 5-cent piece, for example? The big challenge, I suspect, is vending machines. Vending machines don’t use cents, so when they changed the composition there, it didn’t matter; but most vending machines use nickels making changing the composition tricky.

Since it costs less than 5c to make a cent. We can assume a 5c piece can be made for less than 5c.

For the record, as of today, 1pm US/East, 11 Feb 2025, there is no such presidential order.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/

Bring back the half cent (Logic and common sense be damned).

And to be clear, all he can do is direct and ask the appropriate bureaucracy to "look into it." Ultimately I believe it comes down to an act of Congress, but it would probably start with some director making a presentation and case to Congress. As an alternative the Director could also propose a new cheaper composition, if there is one.

I would propose maybe moving the decimal point on all prices.

@ProofCollection said:
And to be clear, all he can do is direct and ask the appropriate bureaucracy to "look into it." Ultimately I believe it comes down to an act of Congress, but it would probably start with some director making a presentation and case to Congress. As an alternative the Director could also propose a new cheaper composition, if there is one.

I would propose maybe moving the decimal point on all prices.

In 1804 the Mint stopped making eagles and dollars. This was done by order of Mint Director Elias Boudinot with the approval of President Jefferson. The precedent is there.

@WCC said:

@BillJones said:
If the cent production is suspended, do you think that there will be big spike in demand for collector cents, like there was in 1857? That got the coin hobby started in the United States.

Even if it happens, supply is absolutely huge. Discontinuing the denomination doesn't mean a surge in demand for higher TPG label numbers.

The supply of earlier dates isn’t. I put together a set of Indian and Flying Eagle Cents fairly easily. The 1858 large letters is the exception because some people are playing games with market. As it was with the 1877 Twenty Cent Piece, they can’t play with it forever, so I will wait. I got burned on the 1877 Twenty Cent Piece. I won’t get burned this time. I can buy a VF or EF if it comes to that.

The large cents are something else. The die variety collectors take large numbers of pieces off the market because they need multiple examples of the same date. That makes them harder to find. I’ve got six dates left. I’m not sure if I would want to be starting on that collection now.

Smart move.

So do it and get on with life.

when the remaining cents all look like parking lot finds, will they stop posting them here?

@Rc5280 said:

@oldabeintx said:
Since it costs less than 5c to make a cent. We can assume a 5c piece can be made for less than 5c.

Not so much. Try $0.14 each to produce and distribute the Nickel.

Treasury Secretary Bessent just said, on live tv a few minutes ago in regards to the 1C…
Quote: “It’s going soon”……

I think the implication was that you can make a nickel to the same specifications as the current cent (size, metal content). That would cost less than 5 cents to make (although that might not last long if costs continue to increase).

@MsMorrisine said:

@U1chicago said:
I think the implication was that you can make a nickel to the same specifications as the current cent (size, metal content). That would cost less than 5 cents to make (although that might not last long if costs continue to increase).

coin counter hell

It certainly would not be ideal. And maybe some changes could be made to make it different enough to prevent counting machine issues. But it would make more sense to get rid of the nickel too.

It would take Congress to officially end the making of the cent but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent can just order "0" number of cent's to be made to put an immediate stop to the production.

Don't stop there, eliminate all coins

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.