When will non-federal coin distributors stop harvesting cents?
Creg
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I doubt anyone knows, but are there experiences or notions from the forum?
My concern is that day when Coinstar rejects them.
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As soon as retail stops using them
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With the cent being tossed in jars, buckets, ect over generational decades, I figure there's at least two full years of production totals that at some point enter the system. Imaging one five gallon bucket being exchanged. Not everyone who has such accumulations collects coins so simply hearing about their demise will cause it to happen. To my understanding, only the production has been suspended, not the use and acceptance. Which requires further legislation that is surely coming.
Before that, could there be a point where banks and Coinstar do not want to pay the collection, storage, and distribution costs without the participation of the Treasury?
once into the circulation stream, the federal reserve dealswith them
Seems like a text run to test the public's acceptance of life without coinage. In this case the cent. Using the argument that it is too costly to produce. If successful, all other coinage elimination will eventually follow.
Maybe. But the Treasury is not their customer, retail is. As long as there is demand, they will sell them.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
So, the harvesters (gradually) sell the unwanted acculmulated cents back to the Treasury?
And then they’re out of circulation forever?
I honestly have no idea what Treasury or retail are going to do. At some point, someone is going to pass consumer protection laws to deal with the demise of cents.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Nobody has said ANYTHING about retiring them from circulation, simply not making more.
Through 2022, the mint has made almost 94 BILLION of the Union Shield cents alone.
They'll simply exist, with slow losses due to damage and disposal (couches going to land fills). Until the heat death of the universe.
ANA 50+ year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
Author: 3rd Edition of the SampleSlabs book, https://sampleslabs.info/
I think retailers are very quickly going to start rounding. No business is going to want the expense of handling pennies at a premium that will probably become nearly 5c each anyway.
This is probably the logical thing to do... but that doesn't mean the country will quickly embrace it. The US has had an illogical connection to cents for years.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Is it correct to assume that the fees we pay to the banks to maintain an account and the difference between savings interest and loan interest bear that percentage of the cost of the distribution of cents?
In my personal experience, it’s already happening quite a bit anyway. Most convenience stores don’t care about a few pennies either direction.
Right, not when, nor how quickly, but the way they go out.
This is the direction I aimed at—
This is the sense I get—
At the end of the stream, right? Who is going to take them there if the cost of handling cents is prohibitive?
I seldom use cash and don’t often see others using cash. Non-cash transactions do not need to be rounded. I expect zero economic impact and temporary confusion only among the most ignorant.
That's where all y'all are wrong. "Deal with them" will be to simply leave them in vaults, dribbling them out as banks and other cash clients request them.
This is what has happened with the dollar coin backlog that dropped under 1 billion after the Fed stopped ordering / Mint stopped producing 100M of each design in 2012. With 754m in inventory and 22m consumed per quarter, that's a 8.5 year backlog, meaning 22 years after they stopped significant production.
https://www.npr.org/2011/06/28/137394348/-1-billion-that-nobody-wants
https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/coin_dollarcoin.htm
Finally, recovering usable zinc from returned coins is a difficult process...
https://www.britannica.com/technology/zinc-processing
ANA 50+ year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
Author: 3rd Edition of the SampleSlabs book, https://sampleslabs.info/
the mint considers recycleability when making composition recs.
i'm guessing zincolns can be recycled without much cost
I doubt it. The spot price for zinc is a little over $3000 per METRIC TON.
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They directly charge retailers. That's why CRH are a drag
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Everybody pays except the "hobbyist" who thinks it's free.
The banks pay the contracted coin terminal when they order coins through the Fed. And again when they deposit them,
The merchant pays the bank when they order coins or deposit them.
ANA 50+ year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
Author: 3rd Edition of the SampleSlabs book, https://sampleslabs.info/
Recently horse race tracks in Kentucky and New York started paying off the breakage to the nearest cent. Payoffs now include .01-.99. So looks like those establishments will still need the cents.
Every time a customer deposits a roll of cents ($.50) at a bank, the bank pays WELL over $1.00 in processing costs (transportation / roll cracking [biggest expense] / verification / wrapping). The bank would be better off putting customer wrapped cents in the dumpster!
I seriously doubt more than several billion coins will come back in and most of them will just flow backward in the pipeline. No one cares about pennies. A five gallon jug is a lot of work to become persona non grata at your bank. A lot of the pennies not yet in the garbage stream will be heaped into it for decades. But make no mistake about it; There will never be many nice attractive BU 1984-P cents going into trash because almost none were made and survivorship in remarkably low.
The coins going into the garbage in the coming decades will be the tired, tattered, and corroded garbage in circulation today in an even more highly degraded condition.
You're lucky. Where I live, I'll hand a twenty dollar bill over for a 19.02 purchase. I walk out with 98 cents jingling in my pocket. Makes me crazy......and.....it happens all the time !
Agreed. It drives me nuts when they think they are entitled to CRH at zero cost and complain when banks don't want to accommodate them.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Slightly off topic but somewhat relevant. Stopped at Sheetz yesterday for an early morning coffee and saw this on the door. Looks like they are already having trouble getting pennies.
RGDS!
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
BOOMIN!™
Wooooha! Did someone just say it's officially "TACO™" Tuesday????
and they are going to stop in 2026
the fed res must be hoarding
Think that give-a-penny-take-a-penny saucers will disappear?
I would assume so but then maybe the penny saucer will just become the nickel and dime saucer, at least until they decide to cancel that too. RGDS!
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
BOOMIN!™
Wooooha! Did someone just say it's officially "TACO™" Tuesday????
We made a stop in Southern WI this past week and the Kwik Trip gas stations have letters posted stating that with the USM no longer going to produce cents and Garda having supply issues they are no longer making change with cents and will round down. You must have exact change only. On another note, my local credit union quit ordering/selling boxes of halves for/to customers. I assume this is happening at most of the local banks, only to avoid the surge of silver searchers. No cents-no halves, what’s next?
on the extreme end: no cash