PINCH a Penny lol

FarmerChick

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How much does it cost to make a penny?


As of May 2010, it costs ~ 1.67 US (or $0.0167 US Dollars(USD)) to mint a penny, making the face value of a 1 penny less than its actual manufacturing value.

The cost of a penny is largely dictated by the materials used to make it. Pennies contain 97.5% zinc, with 2.5% copper to give them their distinctive coppery color. Prices of these metals have risen dramatically, in response to market demands and increasing regulation of mining, which has made the cost of metals extraction much higher.

The obvious solution to make a penny less expensive is to change the composition of the coin, integrating cheaper metals or perhaps even plastics, as is done with some European currency.

However, attempts at changing the composition of the penny have met with some opposition, since some people are concerned that changes in composition could change the look and feel of the iconic American coin, even though in 1943, the US Mint coined pennies in steel, in response to wartime demand for copper.

Others have suggested that it may be time to do away with the one cent penny altogether, a decision which would certainly change the way Americans do business, as well as anger people in the state of Illinois who's favorite iconic President Abraham Lincoln is on the penny.

In addition to the penny, the nickel also has a physical value which is higher than its face value; nickels cost around 7.7 US to make. Other currency, such as dimes and quarters, costs much less to make. The face value of a quarter may be 25 US, but it only costs 10 US to make one. In some people's opinions. The relative high cost to make a penny or a nickel is balanced out by the lower costs of producing the other coins. Still the debate over the fate of the little red cent continues.

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just seemed weird about pennies to me LOL
I pinch pennies til they scream haha
 

Emerald

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In the long run coins are still much less expensive to manufacture than paper money- most paper money wears out extremely quick compared to coins that can hang around almost indefinitely.
That is why they have been pushing the newer dollar and half dollar coins instead of paper dollars.
I'm sure that there are just tons of sites that will give you the basic life ratios of coins vs. paper money.(I'm sure that I read about the UK and Europe mostly use coins for small transactions not paper and it saves them "thousands" of "dollars" on minting money)
I have even found in a load of pea stone for the driveway an Indian head penny from the 1838(I think, let me go look) Nope my dyscalculia strikes again! It is 1883! Other than being much darker than my other Indian head pennies, it is in fantastic shape.

At least spending a bit to make money is better than all the cash New York is wasting to change all the street signs to upper and lower case letters instead of all upper case--they even cite that on the internet words that are all upper case means that we're shouting and who wants the road signs shouting at folks-- they want to make New York City a much more peaceful gentle place.. Whooboy :rolleyes: What next.. lol :gig
 

Dunkopf

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OK you made me Google it to find out the real reason they are replacing the signs. They are doing it to conform to the National Transportation Board standards. They say that signs printed properly in upper and lower case are easier to read and don't require as long to read. They also say the old signs have an avg life of 10 years and that the new signs have a coating on them that will make them last longer. Cost is only 27.5 million. A mere drop in the bucket.

Personally I think most people are too busy texting to read the signs anyway.
 

Dunkopf

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Cost a lot of money to run a city the size of NYC. If you've ever been there you would see why. The skyline doesn't look as impressive as it used to. However when you see the whole skyline and realize it is 100 blocks of buildings that avg 75 stories tall it is amazing. TV doesn't do it justice. Wouldn't want to live there, but staying there for about 2 months would be fun.
 

FarmerChick

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I grew up in NJ and took the Path train into NY alot

I sure wouldn't even want to live there for 2 months :lol:
for me, anyway lol


yea too bad states are going financially unsound also and then the little cities are out of money too---well not NYC I guess they got their millions to spend
 

journey11

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Doing away with the penny would anger my 3-yr-old DD too. She'd rather have a penny than a quarter any day!

Now I kinda feel bad for all the pennies I melted in high school chem lab.... :rolleyes:
 

Dunkopf

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FarmerChick said:
I grew up in NJ and took the Path train into NY alot

I sure wouldn't even want to live there for 2 months :lol:
for me, anyway lol


yea too bad states are going financially unsound also and then the little cities are out of money too---well not NYC I guess they got their millions to spend
Well yeah. The people that brought us the recession deserve to be wealthy beyond belief.

I had a job for 7 years that had me in New York or one of the 5 boroughs for about 1 year straight. Home for 4 days then back to New York for 10 days. It was a lot of fun. Of course our hotel was paid with a rental car and a good expense account. We hung out in NYC quite a lot. Of course that was back before 9/11 and before they cleaned up the city and bussed all the homeless people to Florida. Walking down the street was always an adventure.
 

k0xxx

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Some more penny facts.

Lincoln pennies dated 1981 and prior are made from 95% copper and 5% zinc. Some 1982 pennies are 95% copper also, as the switch to copper plated zinc occurred mid year. The easiest way to tell the difference is by weight, the 95% copper pennies weigh 3.11 grams and the copper plated zinc pennies weigh 2.5 grams (about 20% lighter).

Copper has seen a good price increase in recent months, so the value of a penny has increased nicely. To figure the current value:

$3.7044 = copper price / pound on Oct 05, 2010.
.95 = copper %
$1.0309 = zinc price / pound on Oct 05, 2010.
.05 = zinc %
3.11 = total weight in grams
.00220462262 = pound/gram conversion factor (see note directly below)

The NYMEX uses pounds to price these metals, that means we need to multiply the metal price by .00220462262 to make the conversion to grams.

1. Calculate 95% copper value :

(3.7044 .00220462262 3.11 .95) = $0.0241284


2. Calculate 5% zinc value :

(1.0309 .00220462262 3.11 .05) = $0.0003533


3. Add the two together :

$0.0241284 + $0.0003533 = $0.0244817


$0.0244817 is the melt value for the 1909-1982 copper cent on October 05, 2010.
 

Dunkopf

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So taking your pennies to the scrap yard is a better value than taking them to the bank? I wonder if you can actually do that.
 

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