Is America ready to lose small change

Is America ready to lose small change by A Person | Published on Sun Apr 03, 2011 10:42 pm | News It costs about 2 cents to mint a cent and a dime to mint a nickel. The US mint lost $42 million last year on them. A dime only costs 4 cents, a quarter 10 cents and a dollar coin 16 cents. Do they really matter? The only reason to keep them is so that shop keepers can post prices of $4.99. Given the devaluation of the dollar, this will only get worse. The US is unusual in that it still produces low denomination notes. Canada has a $2 coin (US$2.06), the UK a £2 coin ($3.22), Australia a $2 coin ($2.08) and Europe a €2 coin ($2.85) Apparently the mint could save over $500 million a year if it dropped the dollar bill and substituted a coin. Not because notes are expensive - but because they don't last Apparently there is a lot of resistance to dollar coins in the US. Personally I'd be happy if they dropped anything below a quarter and went with $1, $2 and $5 coins. How about you? Does real money fold or clink?

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

I've been a supporter of revamping the way we carry cash around for many years. I had known that cents were the biggest money drain, but had not been aware that nickles and dimes are also in that boat.

It's amazing how silly stuff like this gets people upset. There had been a proposal a few years back to get rid of the $1 bill and completely rely on dollar coins. Congress got so much flak from constituents calling and writing to complain that they scrapped the notion. And really, it's a ridiculous thing to get upset over.

And you'd think that this would be a darling issue for Republicans and Tea Party folks: they have been fighting to reduce spending that they consider "nonsensical," such as volcano research and NPR. Well, getting rid of these low-denomination coins and notes would save BILLIONS of dollars over the years. Why isn't this on their radar?

Oh, right... there's apparently a moral imperative that the nation keep the penny, nickle and dime, to honor the presidents that adorn them. Probably the same is true for the $1 bill. As if anyone bothers to LOOK at the pictures on these things when they're making purchases.

[A Person]

nickles and dimes

Just cents and nickles. The dime is still a money maker. It only contains 2.68 grams of mostly copper with a cladding of copper/nickel alloy. The nickel contains twice the metal (5 grams) for half the value

Money preferences are strange. Canada had a $2 note before the coin was introduced. The red $2 note was used in the east but not in the west. For some reason people would refuse them with their change and so they would accumulate and be sent back east. Why? BuggeredifIknow. The good news is that the government made $200 million dollars from scrapping them - 109,271,483 of the notes were never returned to the Bank of Canada, the rest being either lost or retained as collector's items.

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

nickles and dimes

Just cents and nickles. The dime is still a money maker. It only contains 2.68 grams of mostly copper with a cladding of copper/nickel alloy. The nickel contains twice the metal (5 grams) for half the value

Well I must admit that I would be sad to lose the nickel. After all, it is the only American coin series that has remained unchanged in composition and size from its start in 1883.

I'll stress however that being sad about it does not mean I'd oppose the change. I recognize the need and think that pragmatism needs to dominate this debate.

Besides, other than the original shield design and the Indian-head design, the series has been dominated by poor, even truly UGLY design. I wouldn't miss it much.

[A Person]

The nickel is also the only metric coin at exactly 5 grams

I found an interesting site that tracks the value of coins based on current metal prices i.e. current melt value. It doesn't include the minting costs. Those pre-1982 copper cents are a bargain. Buy them up and melt them down for 200% profit.

http://www.coinflation.com/

1909-1982 Cent (95% copper) * $0.01 $0.0281284 281.28%
1946-2011 Nickel $0.05 $0.0674527 134.90%
1982-2011 Cent (97.5% zinc) * $0.01 $0.0063820 63.82%
1965-2011 Dime $0.10 $0.0244019 24.40%
1965-2011 Quarter $0.25 $0.0610081 24.40%
1971-2011 Half Dollar $0.50 $0.1220171 24.40%
1971-1978 Eisenhower Dollar $1.00 $0.2440357 24.40%
1979-1981, 1999 SBA Dollar $1.00 $0.0871546 8.71%
2000-2011 Sacagawea Dollar $1.00 $0.0737239 7.37%
2007-2011 Presidential Dollar $1.00 $0.0737239 7.37%

[Liv]

Yeah I wish we had $2 coins here... make like much easier...

I just got two boxes of golden dollars today delivered....

Yeah!