Penny to disappear from coinage system, minting to end by fall: budget (Canada)

Canadian Press ^

[nuconvert]

OTTAWA - There may still be pennies from heaven, but they won't be coming from the mint much longer.

The humble one-cent piece is set to disappear from Canadian pockets, a victim of inflation.

Thursday's federal budget said the Royal Canadian Mint will strike the last of the little coins this fall.

The budget says the cost of minting a penny has risen to 1.6 cents or $11 million a year. Its purchasing power has fallen to a 20th of its original value.

[Red Badger]

A penny saved is a penny earned. We should do the same. It is practically worthless..............

[DesertRhino]

We should get rid of the penny, the nickel, and the dime. When the smallest coin is a quarter, we can explain to everyone that it represents the duende buying power of a penny when the fed was created.

[Buckeye McFrog]

You would also have an immediate surge of inflation as everyone rounded their prices to the nearest quarter, which is why politicians are a’scared to do it.

[Red Badger]

We should also stop printing $1 bills and go strictly with coins. Bring back the fifty cent piece as a smaller coin.........

[Beagle8U]

“We should do the same. It is practically worthless..............”

Older than 1982, about 3 1/2 cents. Ditto for Canadian older than 1995.

[Atlas Sneezed]

It’s time once again to trot out my currency and coinage reform proposal.

Given that there has been ample inflation on the order of 10 since the last change, and we have an excessive array of confusing coins and low-value currency, it is time for a practical simplification.

First, denominations need to proceed in a proportional way without large value ratios or crowded ratios. The classic 1-5-10-50-100... progression with ratios of 2.0-5.0 is ideal as a minimum, with denominations of 2, 20, etc. being optional for important valuations.

Second, we want to avoid coins of such low value that they are more trouble than they are worth. Economic waste occurs with the extra time wasted dealing with needlessly small coins. A dime is worth less than a minute of labor at minimum wages, and no currency transaction requires anything smaller than this denomination. The penny and the half-cent served well as the smallest denominations when their values were that of today’s dime. (Note to any economic imbeciles: electronic transactions are often conducted in smaller units than our smallest coin, and that cash registers have been “rounding” - without bias up or down - to the nearest small coin for sales tax purposes for generations. Google “sales tax rounding” if you have doubts and read a few articles).

Third, we want to set the coin/currency transition at a practical level that avoids our wallets being overstuffed with small bills, or our pockets with too many coins. Coins should be suitable for purchases like a magazine, a coffee, a lunch, or a brief cab ride.

Fourth, the ratio between the largest and smallest coin should be limited to a practical factor. Consider that the economy functions effectively with coins at 0.05, 0.10, and 0.25, with pennies treated as trash, and larger coins generally not used. That is a factor of 5 between the largest and smallest coin. A factor of 10-50 may be ideal, and a factor of 100 (as in actual current coinage) is excessive.

Fifth, we need bills of adequately high value for large cash purchases (consider the largest Euro note has a value of about 6.5 times that of the largest US note.)

Sixth, coins should be sized approximately proportional to their value for ease of recognition and use.

The proposal:

Coins:
$0.10 (slightly smaller than the current dime)
$0.50 (slightly smaller than the current nickel, larger than the penny)
$1.00 (slightly smaller than the current quarter dollar, larger than the nickel)
$5.00 (slightly smaller than the current half-dollar) Or it could be set at $2 to avoid overlap with a $5 note.

Currency Notes:
$5 (optional)
$10
$20 (optional)
$50
$100
$500

Our current 6 coins are replaced with 4.
Our current 7 notes are replaced with 4-6.

If you want to talk about making coins out of silver or gold, I’m even more enthusiastic:

$1000 gold coin (1 oz)
$500 gold coin (1/2 oz)
$100 gold coin (1/10 oz)
$20 silver coin (1 oz)
$10 silver coin (1/2 oz)
$2 silver coin (1/10 oz)
$1 copper or base metal coin (1/2 oz)
$0.50 copper or base metal coin (1/4 oz)
$0.10 copper or base metal coin (1/10 oz)

[Atlas Sneezed]

Pre-82 is currently 2.5 cents of copper value, but your point is well-made.