Penny cost 2 cents to make

[moe.ron]

US Mint testing new metals to make coins cheaper

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - When it comes to making coins, the Mint isn't getting its two cents worth. In some cases, it doesn't even get half of that.

A penny costs more than two cents and a nickel costs more than 11 cents to make and distribute. The quandary is how to make coins more cheaply without sparing our change's quality and durability, or altering its size and appearance.

A 400-page report presented last week to Congress outlines nearly two years of trials conducted at the Mint in Philadelphia, where a variety of metal recipes were put through their paces in the massive facility's high-speed coin-making machinery.

Evaluations of 29 different alloys concluded that none met the ideal list of attributes. The Treasury Department concluded that additional study was needed before it could endorse any changes.

"We want to let the data take us where it takes us," Dick Peterson, the Mint's acting director, said Wednesday. More test runs with different alloys are likely in the coming year, he said.

The government has been looking for ways to shave the millions it spends every year to make bills and coins. Congressional auditors recently suggested doing away with dollar bills entirely and replacing them with dollar coins, which they concluded could save taxpayers some $4.4 billion over three decades. Canada is dropping its penny as part of an austerity budget.

http://money.msn.com/business-news/a...20&id=15926937

Get rid of all the coin below .50

Also make the dollar bill into coins:

The Government Accountability Office in March 2011 found that replacing the $1 note with a $1 coin could save the government approximately $5.5 billion over 30 years.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/...-dollar-bills/

[Sciencewoman]

Originally Posted by moe.ron

Also make the dollar bill into coins:

I would hate this. The "loonies" and "twonees" in Canada really weigh you down and make it sound like you're carrying a lot of cheap tips in your apron.

[Cheerio]

US Mint has long-told of high penny cost; large nickel cost news to me.

Coin composition change makes sense to keep both penny and nickel coins available for use. And I DO want to see BOTH kept as coinage!

Why not just get rid of the dime--it's too small for our aging Boomer Population to easily handle.

By same thought, why not stop printing ten dollar bills? Keep ones and fives (2 fives=one ten).

US Mint must be clearing-out its older stock of State Quarters, as banks here currently carry shiny-coin "new" rolls from final 4 years of Mint's State Quarter Series.

As for using dollar coins as payment in stores, I do...but I NEVER GET THEM BACK as change. Getting them as change FROM a store would be useful to the Mint's fiscal ideals!

[AGDee]

We have some vending machines at work that take $5 bills and give the gold dollar coins as change. I use them as fast as I can because they are so heavy and strain the change section of my wallet.

[Drolefille]

I love dollar coins and wish they were standard.

[abyOII]

Coins have to go. Can't wait till currency is completely digital some day.