RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Fortress of Awesome Chat A Penny for Your Thoughts, and 1.4 Cents for the Penny

A Penny for Your Thoughts, and 1.4 Cents for the Penny

By FLOYD NORRIS, The New York Times

(April 22) - What happens if a penny is worth more than 1 cent?

That is an issue the United States Mint could soon face if the price of metals keeps rising. Already it costs the mint well more than a cent to make a penny.


Last year, the U.S. Mint made 7.7 billion pennies -- more than the number of all the other coins it produced.

This week the cost of the metals in a penny rose above 0.8 cents, more than twice the value of last fall. Because the government spends at least another six-tenths of a cent — above and beyond the cost of the metal — to make each penny, it will lose nearly half a cent on each new one it mints.

The real problem could come if metals prices rise so high that it would be economical to melt down pennies for the metals they contain.

Appearances aside, pennies no longer contain much copper. In the middle of 1982, after copper prices rose to record levels, the mint starting making pennies that consist mostly of zinc, with just a thin copper coating.

But these days, zinc is newly popular. Rising industrial demand and speculation have sent the price rocketing. Since the end of 2003, zinc prices have tripled. Gold, by contrast, is up only about 50 percent.

"What is really new in the commodity world is the extent to which hard commodities have been converted to financial assets through exchange-traded funds and hedge funds," said Ed Yardeni, the chief investment strategist of Oak Associates.

"In the late 90's," Mr. Yardeni added, "my hedge fund friends were all experts in technology. Now all they talk about is zinc, lead and oil. There is a lot of money that has poured into these areas."

That may mean that a bubble is brewing, but Mr. Yardeni thinks the run is not yet over.

Asked if the mint had a backup plan for what it will do if zinc prices rise far enough that it could pay to melt down pennies, a spokesman said that such issues were for Congress to decide. Perhaps the mint could go back to making steel pennies, as it did during World War II when copper was needed for the war effort.

Pennies, meanwhile, are in high demand. Last year, the mint made 7.7 billion of them — more than the number of all the other coins it produced. In the first three months of this year, the pace of penny production rose to an annual rate of 9 billion — the highest since 2001.

Why so many? Perhaps there is now some hoarding in expectation that metal prices will keep rising, but mostly it is an issue of sales taxes, which in most states are added to the retail price and assure that the total price of many items will require pennies to be given in change if a customer pays with dollar bills. That helps explain why the idea of eliminating the penny has gone nowhere.

So retailers demand pennies from their banks, the banks demand them from the Federal Reserve, and the Fed orders them from the mint. Many of the people who get the pennies in change throw them into a jar, where they may sit for years, requiring the mint to make more and more of them.

And, at these prices, lose money on every one.

Fuck the Government.


I pick pennies up when I see them.

I have lots of pennies and I refuse to share them with the government. *haha!* the mint has to make mooooore!!

I pick up pennies, too.. I save them in jars, and every 8 or 9 years or so, I cash 'em in, getting anywhere from $10.00 to $15.00 for my efforts.

Now I throw in nickels and dimes, too...it adds up.

i put all my change, minus quarters for laundry, in a jar. more so when i was alsways going to a bar, it filled up fast and always had about 30 or so bux in it. i generally spent it on somthing for the kids, cashed it in and got them somthing. that boy has gone thru like 4 batmobiles

I never pay for anything with pennies. I keep in a jar until its full, then cash it in. I usually get about 20 bucks for it.

same difference, i take it to coinstar and then go get it for him. i don't actually count that shit out. fuck that.

Coinstar takes out something like nine cents per dollar. They must make tons of money off that shit.

i imagine they do, but it's worth it when i don't have to count and roll a few hundred pennies. plus, it's a lot fucking faster. just dump the whole damn jar on there and feed the coins in.

I used to take it to banks, but now they charge you if you don't have over certain amount of change. You could also take it to those self check out lanes they have everywhere now.

yeah, but you have to feed it to the self check out lanes like you would a coke machin. one at a time. when your dealin with a few hundred pennies and some nickels and dimes it takes too long. i'll pay my 9 cents on the dollar, and be in and out in 3 minutes, maybe 5.

A lot of banks offer the service free of charge if you've got an account there.

My bank has a program where a percentage (I think it's 3.5%) goes to charity. I don't mind their cut going to a good cause.

my bank requires they be rolled. takes too much time to deal with. i even have on of those self sortnig things that has the roll ot the bottom for the varying coins, but it still takes longer than coinstar. it's possible somewhere round town my bank has some machine like that but not any of them round me. driving round ton looking for one would take time.

I started saving pennies in 1998, the year I moved back to Philly. I took a jar full of mostly pennies and some nickles and dimes, dumped it into the coinstar thingie, and got back about $14.00 in cash. I used it to buy a 10" Worf figure for my desk.

Sometime in the mid 90's, when I last took a jar of pennies to the bank, I got back about $20.00, and used the $$$ to buy a few Carlos Casteneda books I wanted...

And during the mid 80's, a coffee can full of dimes, nickels and pennies bought me a new suitcase that was almost $40.00. I still have all these purchases.

it works. mine tends to jump higher cause i try not to use much of my change, to stick in the jar. so i wind up with lots of dimes and nickels. those dimes add up real fast.

URG takes money to bank and purdy lady dumps change in machine for free and than gives URG cash. URG am looking at hers bvoobs while she am doing that. All and all it am fun time for URG.

urg am real man