Do Pennies make SENSE?

The Washington Times ^ | 2/13/09 | Jennifer Harper

[lakeprincess]

The minting of 4 new Lincoln cents has got the anti-penny crowd in an uproar - complete with civil disobedience calling for the end of penny use. They're vexed at the "zinc lobby."

[Axenolith]

Zinc pennies SUCK! The rapidly decompose in the ground to pitted and holed crap and the numbers minted today insures that the average relatively un-detected old city park is going to have thousands of them to noodle through to get to the good stuff when metal detecting.

They also contaminate the soil and poison anything that ingests them (dogs, kids, geese, etc...)

The top row here is post 1965 Quarters, then dimes, then 1959-82 Lincoln Memorial cents. The pennies around the key are zincs, along with a few nickels and lawnmower clipped coins. The bottom demonstrates the resilience of real money, wheat cents to the 20's and silver dimes as old as 1917-S (S being the mark for San Francisco's mint). This is from a single hunt in December. Save the coppers, cull them from circulation and enforce Greshams Law!

[eclecticEel]

GET BIG ZINC OUT OF GOVERNMENT!

Cough ... ahem, where did that come from?

[razorboy]

Paper money is more convenient. It’s lighter, flexible, and smaller. I won’t have anything to do with dolalr coins. There’s good reasons why they fail where ever introduced unless the government also removes the paper equivalents. Paper money is superior for the users (that’s us), and the government is supposed to serve us.

[goodnesswins]

Have you ever lived in Canada? Carrying around Loonies and Toonies is a workout....

[cotton1706]

I think they make cents. (couldn’t resist!)

[Axenolith]

Actually, the last coin we got rid of was the 20 cent piece (1878). Before that it was the half dime (1873)...

[cripplecreek]

Never ever miss a bandwagon. You can always jump off and walk nonchalantly away when the other folks on it start looking nutty.

[Axenolith]

Actually, up until the runup in copper a couple years back, the treasury made about 50 million a year in sovereignage on pennies. It’s probably back to positive with base metals being down...

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

I’m not against paper money. Only dollar bills. So ya gotta carry for Quarter-sized coins. Big deal!
“It costs the US government 4.2 cents to produce a U.S. bill. US currency bills are printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP). The BEP prints about 16,650,000 one dollar bills each day. Most of these are used to replace worn, older bills (which are shredded). According to the US Treasury, there are billions of one dollar bills in circulation.

LIFE SPAN: The average dollar bill has a life span of about 18-22 months.”

[TankerKC]

Thank you for saving me the time of explaining that!

[evets]

No, but dollars make scents!

[samson1097]

Never get rid of one dollar bills. Do you realize how inconvienent it would be at the gentlemans club?

[AFreeBird]

Last time a got a SquawBuck for change, I handed it back and requested paper.

[ThomasThomas]

We need them so when you go places that have those machines that for 1.00 will smash a penny so you can remember where you went.

[Badeye]

Hmmm. I’ve heard and read its a losing proposition no matter what the cost for base metals are, of a couple of billion per year.

I don’t have a link, just recall what I’ve read.

[razorboy]

It is a big deal. There's a reason man kind moved FROM metal money TO paper. Paper is more convenient. Put 10 dollars in 1s in one pocket and 10 dollars in the metal denomination of your choice in another, carry them all day, notice which way your pants are tilting. Metal money stinks.

I don't care how much it costs the government to print the money. It's one of the only things they spend money on that's actually part of their Constitutional mandate. The cost of making 1 dollar bills is negligible on the books, less than half of pretty much any of the unconstitutional projects. If you want to save government money dump welfare, leave my ones alone.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

16,650,000 X 4.2cents = $ 699,300 a day! If using 365 days a year, that’s $255,244,500 per year, for something that gets shredded after 18 months.
(Did I do the math right? I’m rotten at math!)

[cripplecreek]

We need them so when you go places that have those machines that for 1.00 will smash a penny so you can remember where you went.

I did that when I was at Tahquamenon falls up north last summer. It was a hand cranked press and only cost fity cent.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

You just have to put the coins in the slot! What’s complicated about that?

[Alberta's Child]

Here's an interesting little item about the history of Lincoln pennies . . .

During World War II the U.S. government needed copper for the production of ammunition, so for one year (1943) the Lincoln penny was actually produced with steel instead of copper.

There are still a bunch of these in circulation, but it's hard to find any of them with their original shiny luster because the steel corrodes very easily over time.