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Our friends up north last minted pennies in 2012. I would have bet big money at the time that the United States would follow suit and do the same in no more than 2-3 years.

Here we are 11 YEARS LATER and, even with the scare of COVID causing people to have fear when touching dirty things, we still mint them by the billions.

QUESTIONS:

1) Has the discontinuation of pennies in Canada been well accepted by the masses?

2) What is keeping the U.S. from discontinuing the penny?

3) Like him or not, wouldn’t Joe Biden get support even from Republicans if he announced the end of pennies.

4) How much less (with inflation of course) is our penny worth now than it was in 2012?

Your thoughts and comments are welcome, ESPECIALLY ANYONE from Canada.

I'll leave the Canadian replies to our friends up North, but as far as...

2) Lobbyists from Jarden Zinc Products/Artazn, the sole supplier of zinc planchets for the Mint, keep the penny perpetually on life support. Legislation is brought forward every couple of years to eliminate it, but Jarden's $$$ keeps the govt from pulling the plug.

Still soliciting comments from anyone in Canada…

I am not in Canada, but I will comment anyway. I'm going to guess that the masses have accepted it and do not miss the coin except for roll searchers of course! As for question #2, the U.S. has agendas that do not concern the cent. Perhaps TPTB would prefer to eliminate ALL change at once. As for #3, Biden is hated so much that it is difficult to envision him getting support on any issue whatsoever. As for #4, I am guessing that it is worth HALF of what is was in 2012. For example, a one dollar item (which would be 100 pennies) probably cost approximately 50 cents (50 pennies) back then . As for me, I am interested in all Canadian pennies 1996 and older as I "buy" them for face

The reason why the zinc lobby succeeds in keeping penny production cranking is simple... 99.99% of Americans either don't give a crap about this issue, or are slightly nostalgic for the days when pennies had an important role in commerce.

Only 0.01% of Americans are nerdy enough to give serious thought to what would constitute wise coining policy.

Yet another reason to discontinue the penny- zinc (believe it or not) is now on the list of 50 Critical Minerals published by the U.S. Government. These are items where we admittedly don't have enough production from domestic sources and are forced to import the item. Should our list of friendly nations change, we could have a real serious shortage of zinc. Wouldn't eliminating the penny (at least symbolically) indicate the government is somewhat serious about addressing the matter?

Eliminating the cent would not indicate that the government is serious about eliminating inflation. Where does this end? Eliminate the cent, then the nickel, then the dime, then the quarter, then the half dollar then the dollar? Money used to mean something when it had intrinsic value, now money is a joke. If money has no intrinsic value, the government is free to inflate the value to zero. We are almost there.

Now that the RCM 98% copper pennies and 98.4% zinc pennies have been conveniently taken out of the way, Bank of Canada notes can further lose value, in addition to already having lost much value.

Inflation, and its causes, are discussed much in Canada, but people do not seem to make the connection with the debasement of RCM coins, which has made inflation possible.

Someone in Canada can hedge against a potential devaluation of Bank of Canada notes by buying Federal Reserve notes. (This is just one hedge amongst many.)

As long as US mint 97.5% zinc pennies are still available in the US money supply (but to a greater degree the US mint cupronickel nickels), money in the USA is still meaningful.

Got a few RCM bank bags. 1962, 63 and 64. Mostly unopened. All red and MS.

Recyclersteve wrote:Yet another reason to discontinue the penny- zinc (believe it or not) is now on the list of 50 Critical Minerals published by the U.S. Government. These are items where we admittedly don't have enough production from domestic sources and are forced to import the item. Should our list of friendly nations change, we could have a real serious shortage of zinc. Wouldn't eliminating the penny (at least symbolically) indicate the government is somewhat serious about addressing the matter?

If what you say is true (about zinc being a critical element), maybe that explains why they keep minting them. They are essentially stockpiling hundreds of thousands of tons of zinc by minting cents. Who knew they could accidentally do something right?!

Cu Penny Hoarder wrote:Got a few RCM bank bags. 1962, 63 and 64. Mostly unopened. All red and MS.

Very nice! The numismatic value here is higher than the copper value, especially with copper hovering around 3 and a half. Also, what is the face value of these bags? I'm gonna guess 50 dollars (each bag)

Silver4face wrote:

Cu Penny Hoarder wrote:Got a few RCM bank bags. 1962, 63 and 64. Mostly unopened. All red and MS.

Very nice! The numismatic value here is higher than the copper value, especially with copper hovering around 3 and a half. Also, what is the face value of these bags? I'm gonna guess 50 dollars (each bag)

They're put away, but from what I remember they are $60 FV RCM bags.

That's a nice stash.