Mint Starts Trial Nickel & Penny Composition Tests

[smallchange]

The United States Mint began producing trial strikes in December at the Philadelphia Mint using nonsense dies to test potential compositional replacements for current circulating coinage alloys.
http://www.coinworld.com/articles/mint- ... tion-test/
The test strikes were produced as part of a two-year research study seeking alternative metals to reduce production costs.

Additional trial strikes are scheduled to be conducted in February or March at the Philadelphia Mint, according to Tom Jurkowsky, director of the U.S. Mint’s Office of Public Affairs.

Jurkowsky did not disclose what possible composition alternatives are being studied, only to say that many of the alternatives being looked at as viable candidates are currently in use in other countries for coinage.

The Mint has been battling the rising costs of copper, zinc and nickel that for the past five years have kept the combined metal acquisition, production and shipping costs for the cent and 5-cent coin above face value for each coin. The U.S. Mint’s recently released annual report for Fiscal Year 2011 noted that the cost to produce the copper-plated Lincoln cent is 2.41 cents, while that for the copper-nickel Jefferson 5-cent coin is 11.18 cents.

The alternative metals study, examining all circulating coin denominations is being conducted under provisions of the Coin Modernization, Oversight and Continuity Act of 2010, signed into law by President Obama on Dec. 14, 2010. The act not only gives the Mint authority to examine new compositions for the cent and 5-cent coin, it also extends the alternative metals study to encompass all circulating coin denominations.

Trial strikes

“We are using recently created enhanced Martha Washington nonsense dies with images that more closely resemble current coinage in order to obtain the most realistic testing and support evaluation,” Jurkowsky said. “The nonsense pieces struck will be analyzed and tested as part of the study.”

The images on the dies were digitally created. U.S. Mint officials declined to provide images of the obverse and reverse of the nonsense dies nor any trial strikes produced from them. In past test strikings over recent decades, the Mint has used various renditions of a portrait of Martha Washington on the obverse and the Washington home at Mount Vernon to produce the experimental pieces.

Jurkowsky said multiple metallic alternatives were used for the December trial strikes. Jurkowsky did not disclose the compositions of any of the alloys that were tested.

“At this point, it is premature to provide details about the alternatives that were tested,” Jurkowsky said. “In general, we plan several phases of testing. First is an initial coinability test to answer the question whether the material makes a suitable coin (proper image, wear, EM [electromagnetic] signature, etc.). This will be followed by more extensive test strikes for likely candidates.

“Eventually, we plan larger scale stamping runs on identified candidates to prepare for potential production.”

Although not a specific part of the Alternative Metals study that provides the authority to produce the test strikes, the U.S. Mint has also studied various die steels and continues to do so in support of improving costs and extending die life, Jurkowsky said.

If warranted, the Mint would consider die steel changes to accommodate the alternative metallic materials identified, Jurkowsky said.

The alternative metals study is being coordinated with the Mint by Concurrent Technologies Corp., under a $1.5 million contract awarded to CTC on Aug. 24, 2011. The contract runs through June 30, 2013.

According to the CTC website, CTC is an independent, nonprofit, applied scientific research and development professional services organization providing innovative management and technology-based solutions to government and industry.

The alternative metals research and development is being overseen by CTC’s chief scientist, Dr. Joseph Pickens. CTC has coordinated with an undisclosed number of suppliers for submission of sample metallic materials.

In its recommendations to the United States Mint, CTC, according to Pickens, will address various factors, such as the effect of new metallic coinage materials on the current suppliers of coinage materials; the acceptability of new metallic materials; costs of metallic material, fabrication, minting and distribution; metallic material availability and sources of raw metals; coinability; durability; effect on sorting, handling, packaging and vending machines; appearance; risks to the environment or public safety; resistance to counterfeiting; and commercial and public acceptance.

“This is a great opportunity for CTC to implement our materials expertise, currently used to solve Department of Defense problems, in an entirely new area,” Pickens said.

[silverflake]

My gosh people, don't just keep stacking, keep stacking FASTER!!!!

(Pretty soon, all we'll have is useless paper money and useless iron coins. Toilet paper and fishing weights?)

[theo]

The alternative metals study, examining all circulating coin denominations is being conducted under provisions of the Coin Modernization, Oversight and Continuity Act of 2010.

I predict that in ten years (maybe sooner) people will be sorting for copper quarters and dimes.

[Night Hawk]

Maybe we'll good some new designs on our coins as well...



Yea right.... (

[uthminsta]

I guess aluminum cent or no cent... and steel nickel. If no cent, then maybe an aluminum nickel.

[justoneguy]

I guess aluminum cent or no cent... and steel nickel. If no cent, then maybe an aluminum nickel.

"
remember this is our goobermint.
as always, it going to be "no-cents"

[smallchange]

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The U.S. Mint is facing a problem -- especially during these penny-pinching times. It turns out it costs more to make pennies and nickels than the coins are worth.

And because of that, the Obama administration this week asked Congress for permission to change the mix of metal that goes to make pennies and nickels, an expensive recipe that has remained unchanged for more than 30 years. etc. etc.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/15/news/ec ... ?iid=HP_LN

[highroller4321]

2013 we will have change!

[SilverEye]

It's not the rising price of metals, it's the decreasing value of the dollar.

I guarantee you we will be telling our kids: We could go down to the bank and buy real copper pennies for a penny a piece! We were so crazy, we didn't even keep the zinc ones, and you know how much zinc is per ounce these days. Heck, all coins used to be made of metal back then! Oh, you don't even know what a "coin" is..

[Hawkeye]

It's not the rising price of metals, it's the decreasing value of the dollar.

I guarantee you we will be telling our kids: We could go down to the bank and buy real copper pennies for a penny a piece! We were so crazy, we didn't even keep the zinc ones, and you know how much zinc is per ounce these days. Heck, all coins used to be made of metal back then! Oh, you don't even know what a "coin" is..

That is a scary thought. Time to pick up a few more rolls. (or boxes)

[Chief]

Ok, what is the sentiment? Will the penny composition and nickel composition be changed in 2013 for sure? I'd like pennies to be completely phased out over 5 years or so (and with it, the melt ban on them). Nickels can be made of the current composition until 2050 for all I care. I might pick up a few bricks, but I don't like the future value of nickels as much as I like pennies.

[uthminsta]

I decided to flesh my thoughts out a little more on this. Let's see...

So the mint wants to come up with a better solution. Okay, give it a whirl. They have yet to call me to ask my opinion but i have a real solution for them.

1. STOP making cents. Continue to use them for many more years, and allow for natural attrition of the supply. There are 300 billion zinc cents already in circulation, and 300 million people in the U.S. That's 1,000 per person, and that doesn't count a single copper coin, which eventually will be gone, if our Ryedales have anything to say about it. Do NOT lift the "melt ban" until after the EVENTUAL demonetization of the cent. But demonetization should not be done for quite some time.

2. STOP making the dollar bill. USE the hundreds of millions of dollar coins sitting in the vaults. Tell the public "too bad, get used to the dollar coin." The coins cost more in the short run, but last many many MANY times as long as a dollar bill, and we all know that.

3. Make the nickel out of something like plated steel. Keep it the same size and weight, or as close as possible. Or for goodness sake, do SOMEthing to it.

Do this, and the mint would reverse their deficit. IMMEDIATELY. And yet they paid over a million bucks to a company to research possibilities. It's not that hard to figure out.

There's no GOOD option for the cent. If minting continues, the only affordable option is aluminum. It can't be plated, that has to add to the cost of minting. So jut plain aluminum. And I fear that doing that might be a worse choice than not making it. I know there is a stigma attached to either one (using cheap metal or not making it). It is believed that it will send the signal that "the US isn't doing so well. Aluminum cents mean inflation." Changing the coins is not dealing with inflation, it is just responding to it. But the truth is, inflation is here so it has to be dealt with. Leave that up to someone else besides the mint. Still, the only reason they have continued to make the cent at all is because THEY CANNOT ADMIT TO INFLATION!!! Instead they keep chugging away, losing money every time one is minted.

Imagine standing in front of one of those massive coin minting machines, hour after hour, day after day, year after year, KNOWING that even turning them on means a loss. But hey, let's keep making them!!! Billions of them! Listen to the coins being minted... tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick... loss loss loss loss loss loss loss... We can't afford to be sentimental about it either! "We like the penny! It's part of our heritage!" That line of thinking doesn't work any more. And we literally can't afford to bow to the lobbyists who are pressuring us to continue buying metals from the big suppliers either. I read in the article below that they are PAYING 1.1 cents for the MATERIAL for the cent! Umm, guys, that's twice the cost of the materials in that coin. There's your problem.

...catching my breath...

Meanwhile the dollar coin, the coin which could make the most profit for the mint, if they actually USED it... Well, they've said "Hey, let's not make them any more." I know, I know... you're saying "I don't want a lot of heavy coins in my pocket, I'd rather have a dollar bill." No, no, no... once again, we can't afford to think like that. Preferences and all the "that's-not-the-way-we've-always-done-it" thinking are too expensive and, and quite frankly are terrible habits!

These choices - lack of willingness to make a change, lack of willingness to admit to inflation - they translate to a mint which has been operating at a loss since at least as far back as 2006! Shouldn't a company go out of business with those stats?

Here's the article that says it cost 1.1 cents in MATERIALS to make a cent:
http://moneyland.time.com/2012/02/15/obama-wants-to-make-cheaper-pennies-and-nickels/

I think I'm done for now. I know most of this has all been said before, but... I just had to say it. Once and for all.

[cesariojpn]

Change we can believe in!!!

[smallchange]

I really think that they are going to change the compo within 2012. I did not post these things for no reason. Good Hunting.

[highroller4321]

I really think that they are going to change the compo within 2012. I did not post these things for no reason. Good Hunting.

And whats your insight to that?

[Bluegill]

I decided to flesh my thoughts out a little more on this. Let's see...

So the mint wants to come up with a better solution. Okay, give it a whirl. They have yet to call me to ask my opinion but i have a real solution for them.

1. STOP making cents. Continue to use them for many more years, and allow for natural attrition of the supply. There are 300 billion zinc cents already in circulation, and 300 million people in the U.S. That's 1,000 per person, and that doesn't count a single copper coin, which eventually will be gone, if our Ryedales have anything to say about it. Do NOT lift the "melt ban" until after the EVENTUAL demonetization of the cent. But demonetization should not be done for quite some time.

2. STOP making the dollar bill. USE the hundreds of millions of dollar coins sitting in the vaults. Tell the public "too bad, get used to the dollar coin." The coins cost more in the short run, but last many many MANY times as long as a dollar bill, and we all know that.

3. Make the nickel out of something like plated steel. Keep it the same size and weight, or as close as possible. Or for goodness sake, do SOMEthing to it.

Do this, and the mint would reverse their deficit. IMMEDIATELY. And yet they paid over a million bucks to a company to research possibilities. It's not that hard to figure out.

There's no GOOD option for the cent. If minting continues, the only affordable option is aluminum. It can't be plated, that has to add to the cost of minting. So jut plain aluminum. And I fear that doing that might be a worse choice than not making it. I know there is a stigma attached to either one (using cheap metal or not making it). It is believed that it will send the signal that "the US isn't doing so well. Aluminum cents mean inflation." Changing the coins is not dealing with inflation, it is just responding to it. But the truth is, inflation is here so it has to be dealt with. Leave that up to someone else besides the mint. Still, the only reason they have continued to make the cent at all is because THEY CANNOT ADMIT TO INFLATION!!! Instead they keep chugging away, losing money every time one is minted.

Imagine standing in front of one of those massive coin minting machines, hour after hour, day after day, year after year, KNOWING that even turning them on means a loss. But hey, let's keep making them!!! Billions of them! Listen to the coins being minted... tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick... loss loss loss loss loss loss loss... We can't afford to be sentimental about it either! "We like the penny! It's part of our heritage!" That line of thinking doesn't work any more. And we literally can't afford to bow to the lobbyists who are pressuring us to continue buying metals from the big suppliers either. I read in the article below that they are PAYING 1.1 cents for the MATERIAL for the cent! Umm, guys, that's twice the cost of the materials in that coin. There's your problem.

...catching my breath...

Meanwhile the dollar coin, the coin which could make the most profit for the mint, if they actually USED it... Well, they've said "Hey, let's not make them any more." I know, I know... you're saying "I don't want a lot of heavy coins in my pocket, I'd rather have a dollar bill." No, no, no... once again, we can't afford to think like that. Preferences and all the "that's-not-the-way-we've-always-done-it" thinking are too expensive and, and quite frankly are terrible habits!

These choices - lack of willingness to make a change, lack of willingness to admit to inflation - they translate to a mint which has been operating at a loss since at least as far back as 2006! Shouldn't a company go out of business with those stats?

Here's the article that says it cost 1.1 cents in MATERIALS to make a cent:
http://moneyland.time.com/2012/02/15/obama-wants-to-make-cheaper-pennies-and-nickels/

I think I'm done for now. I know most of this has all been said before, but... I just had to say it. Once and for all.

Other than the possibility if using Al as a replacement material and keeping the melt ban in place, I can't disagree with what you say. I've been saying the same thing for some now.

Al is actually a skosh more expensive than Zn. In addition, Al coins have never weathered well when tried by others.

Assuming a max of 30% of remaining circulating pennies are still Cu, that puts the 1,000 coin per person to 700. Present company excepted, who actually needs or wants $7 in pennies at any given time.

If the government decided to stop minting the cent, I feel it would fall from favor and disappear from use rather quickly. Like you mentioned, there would still be plenty of them for use during the short transition. Setting prices in 5¢ increments, and rounded taxes to the nearest 5¢ is a no brainer. There are already businesses and consumers already doing just that.

Once they were no longer needed in commerce they would end up in jars like Canadian coins do. Eventually when a person got enough, they would trade them in for other denominations at the banks. Businesses would not be giving them out for change. The ones they got as payment(if they choose to accept them) would go back to the banks. The banks would not be getting orders for them from their business customers. So they would accumulate at the banks. They would in turn send them back to the Fed via their coin processors to accumulate there. At some point they would be melted down and it's done.

The coin counters could continue to accept them for the time being. People could still use them if they can still find a willing business partner. The Cent coin would disappear into history just like the Half Cent did.

This scenario would sort itself out in very short order...

[penny pretty]

nobody picked up the term NONESENSE dies? nonsense!

[TwoAndAHalfCents]

If the government decided to stop minting the cent, I feel it would fall from favor and disappear from use rather quickly. Like you mentioned, there would still be plenty of them for use during the short transition. Setting prices in 5¢ increments, and rounded taxes to the nearest 5¢ is a no brainer. There are already businesses and consumers already doing just that.

Once they were no longer needed in commerce they would end up in jars like Canadian coins do. Eventually when a person got enough, they would trade them in for other denominations at the banks. Businesses would not be giving them out for change. The ones they got as payment(if they choose to accept them) would go back to the banks. The banks would not be getting orders for them from their business customers. So they would accumulate at the banks. They would in turn send them back to the Fed via their coin processors to accumulate there. At some point they would be melted down and it's done.

The coin counters could continue to accept them for the time being. People could still use them if they can still find a willing business partner. The Cent coin would disappear into history just like the Half Cent did.

This scenario would sort itself out in very short order...

Well said. It will all sort itself out in the end. Just give it a chance.

[uthminsta]

Assuming a max of 30% of remaining circulating pennies are still Cu, that puts the 1,000 coin per person to 700.

I don't get your math on that. There are 1000 ZINC cents minted per person in the US. Assuming a 20% copper rate from our sorting, that means there should be around 1,250 coins per person. But either way, the logic is this: there are more than enough to go around at this time.

If they don't mint them, do you really think people will quickly stop using them? I assumed it would go on in use for a while, decreasing more gradually. Would the average consumer know they weren't being minted? Would they notice no new ones in their change? I bet not.

I didn't think about AL costing more than ZN. But I assumed AL was a better choice because, when I look through a foreign coin "junk box," I see all those WWII French plain aluminum coins by the buttload. On the other hand, most of the un-plated zinc coins (Netherlands?) from the 40's are corroded to a virtually unidentifiable state.

[henrysmedford]

I read that the mint is doing the test on planchets that are all ready made to see how they fare. The cent is the only coin that the mint makes from a planchet from all ready made from jarden zinc.
http://www.allzinc.com/
http://www.olinbrass.com/markets/Pages/Coinage.aspx
http://www.ipmx.com/industry/ind_coinage.html

[fb101]

I only hope the new cents whatever they may be fall on the same side of the chute as the zincs.

[cesariojpn]

If the government decided to stop minting the cent, I feel it would fall from favor and disappear from use rather quickly. Like you mentioned, there would still be plenty of them for use during the short transition. Setting prices in 5¢ increments, and rounded taxes to the nearest 5¢ is a no brainer. There are already businesses and consumers already doing just that.

Once they were no longer needed in commerce they would end up in jars like Canadian coins do. Eventually when a person got enough, they would trade them in for other denominations at the banks. Businesses would not be giving them out for change. The ones they got as payment(if they choose to accept them) would go back to the banks. The banks would not be getting orders for them from their business customers. So they would accumulate at the banks. They would in turn send them back to the Fed via their coin processors to accumulate there. At some point they would be melted down and it's done.

The coin counters could continue to accept them for the time being. People could still use them if they can still find a willing business partner. The Cent coin would disappear into history just like the Half Cent did.

This scenario would sort itself out in very short order...

I don't think so if a couple key factors are made:

1. There is no way the cent will be wiped out completely. Us Americans are a stubborn bunch.
2. I think a token mintage would at least keep both collectors satisfied while maintaining enough "replacement" coinage to replace coins either remelted or lost to the ages. There is no way we need an extra 300 million cents to be pumped into the channels every year; 50 million would be a more reasonable amount. Enough to allow people to buy coins for type sets and whatnot, yet enough to stop scalpers and hoarders from salting away coins.

[adagirl]

Change we can believe in!!!

LOL

[Bluegill]

Assuming a max of 30% of remaining circulating pennies are still Cu, that puts the 1,000 coin per person to 700.

I don't get your math on that. There are 1000 ZINC cents minted per person in the US. Assuming a 20% copper rate from our sorting, that means there should be around 1,250 coins per person. But either way, the logic is this: there are more than enough to go around at this time.

I misread your post. Your 1,000 number already excluded the coppers. My bad.

[Bluegill]

I don't think so if a couple key factors are made:

1. There is no way the cent will be wiped out completely. Us Americans are a stubborn bunch.
2. I think a token mintage would at least keep both collectors satisfied while maintaining enough "replacement" coinage to replace coins either remelted or lost to the ages. There is no way we need an extra 300 million cents to be pumped into the channels every year; 50 million would be a more reasonable amount. Enough to allow people to buy coins for type sets and whatnot, yet enough to stop scalpers and hoarders from salting away coins.

Yes we can be stubborn, but we are also whipped dogs when the Government pushes an issue. Look at the bail outs and Obamacare, NDAA, etc, etc... There is some brief griping from a few sectors, but as usual, the sheeple submitizens quickly moved on... Plus I still maintain that a sizable percentage of Americans would actually accept and encourage the idea.

To be honest I would expect the sheep to actually push back harder with the idea of replacing the dollar note with the dollar coin, than with no longer minting the cent. Both of which I feel needs to be done.

As far as hoarding, that is a very real possibility. But I think that could have more in common with how the hoarding of bi-centennial quarters played out more than anything else. But then again, we are talking about cancelling a denomination. I still don't think enough Americans really care for that to be an issue though...

If the Mint wants to produce Cu (or Zn) specimens for collectors the way they do for Halves, let them. If they can make a profit from it, by all means do so. But mint 50 million a year at a loss to replenish what we're trying to eliminate, or to accommodate collectors, kinda defeats the whole purpose of cancelling it in the first place.