Melting Coins Now Illegal In the U.S. 778
A number of readers have noted the action by the U.S. Mint to outlaw the melting down or bulk export of coins. This has come about because the value of the precious metals contained in coins now exceeds their face value.
The Mint would rather not have to replace pennies (at a cost of 1.73 cents per) or nickels (at 8.74 cents). The expectation is that Congress will mandate new compositions for some U.S. coins in 2007.
If this keeps up... (Score:5, Funny)
If this keeps up, .002 cents really will [slashdot.org] = $.002
(Sorry, but it had to be said...)
Re:If this keeps up... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:If this keeps up... (Score:5, Funny)
.05 cents? Let us know when you've reached 20 and maybe somebody will send you a penny for your thoughts. :-D
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pressedpenny.com [pressedpenny.com]
What is the government definition of "bulk"?
Re:If this keeps up... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, it should be a punishable crime... and some public workers should pay for it.
How is it possible to have things so upwards?
It is *not* "costing the government money"; it is costing the *taxpayers'* money. It is the government the one that is using something to guarantee something of less value. It is the government's fault and it is the government the one that should pay for such a deep arrogance about thrashing away tax-payers' money.
Well, the government declares owing me a cent by means of an item called "a cent". OK, that's the government side of the deal; it had all the powers to choose a piece of paper or a Ferrari to stablish its debt against me. But then, someone else offers me 1.73 cents for such a token. Why shouldn't I accept it? Despite what the government says, the *thruth* is that I'm liberating the government of a "contract" with me. In what crazy world is the debtor able to punish the one that wanted to condom the debt?
Re:If this keeps up... (Score:5, Funny)
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On another note, kudos for linking to the Straight Dope (great site).
Re:Does anyone else here see the bigger problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
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You have it backwards just as almost all so called "news reporters" do (including even financial reporters).
The number of people who don't understand that money is a commodity like coffee or copper is scary. Or should I say currencies are commodities, money is the value?
However, gold, copper, nickle are also commodities which can change in relative value, just like money or coffee. It just depends where the value goes. You could think of them as a cloud of things all moving up and down relative to one another. There is no fixed point other than one you choose, like gold or dollars.
At the moment, yes, the dollar
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Re:Does anyone else here see the bigger problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry and this isn't personal but I'm amazed at how little financial acumen we collectively have. This is the financial equivalent of being surprised that 40% of all sick days are taken on Monday and Friday.
The dollar being worth less and things costing more are exactly the same phenomenon. The value of the metals did not inherently increase. Were this lmited to a specific metal or commodity I would believe it, but it is very broad based and therefore can be traced to a monetary phenomenon (record low interest rates, loose lending practices, and increased consumer/government debt).
Re:Does anyone else here see the bigger problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
The dollar being worth less and things costing more are exactly the same phenomenon. The value of the metals did not inherently increase.
The value of metals DID increase relative to other commodities. So the parent post is right to say that it is a combination of a general decline in the value of the Dollar and an increase in the price of Zinc and Copper.
Why would they make more anyway? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:If this keeps up... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:If this keeps up... (Score:5, Informative)
It's only illegal if you intend to use/distribute them as 'money'. Novelty items are OK.
(Text as of 2/19/02) 18 U.S.C. 331:
Whoever fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates, impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales or lightens any of the coins coined at the mints of the United States, or any foreign coins which are by law made current or are in actual use or circulation as money within the United States;
Re:If this keeps up... (Score:4, Insightful)
Pressed Penny FAQ [pressedpenny.com]
It takes some doing, but it's possible to have fraudulent intent to mutilate. For instance, making a 4-legged buffalo nickel into a 3-legged (rare) variety is fraudulent. Dropping pennies in a machine at Disneyland for souvenirs is perfectly okay.
Re:If this keeps up... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:If this keeps up... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:If this keeps up... (Score:4, Interesting)
To put it another way: I call bullshit.
Re:If this keeps up... (Score:5, Informative)
You really need to get out more. Gasoline, cheap electronics parts like resistors, mutual fund values... lots of stuff is accounted for at greater than 2 decimal point accuracy.
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Re:If this keeps up... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:If this keeps up... (Score:4, Insightful)
The only change would be cash transactions, which would be rounded (probably up) to the nearest nickel.
When the half-cent was abolished in 1857 it was worth more than eight cents in today's currency. It's time for the penny to go, along with the paper dollar. In another 20 years or so, they may as well get rid of the nickel too.
Re:If this keeps up... (Score:5, Informative)
You just round to the nearest 5 cents. If something costs $13.23 then you end up paying $13.25 if you pay cash, if it costs $13.27 then you also pay $13.25 if you pay cash. When paying by EFTPOS (think swiping your debit card in the US) or credit card or cheque (think check it the US
It works perfectly well, sure you can get 2c worth of free petrol (gas...) by putting $40.02 in the tank, but no one does because it's 2c... Sure you could try buying 2c (or 7c) worth of petrol over and over again, but no one does that either because it's retarded.
Just because you remove something from cash transactions doesn't mean you change the "base" of your currency - to claim that is just being moronic. Amazingly Australia didn't collapse, the banks didn't have a field day with "false" interest rates, in fact the only thing that changed is you don't end up carrying 10kg of coins at the end of the day...
Inflation means that a penny now is a *much* *much* finer resolution on prices. People managed perfectly well 50 years ago with a much coarser price scheme... Seriously who gives a stuff if something costs $12.32 or $12.33 - can you even tell the difference at the end of week?
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Re:If this keeps up... (Score:5, Informative)
You conveniantly ignore all the occassions you buy a $5.27 lunch and save 2c. Or you're too stupid to read a simple post. Or maybe to stupid to understand what rounding means.
It averages out - sometimes you pay a cent or two above the total price. Sometimes you pay a cent or two below the total price. If you really care about 2c you can always arrange to be paying less, you just have to add/remove items with non-multiples of 5c prices until your total ends in 1c, 2c, 6c, or 7c.
Of course no one does because, they know it evens out in the long term (heck even in the short term).
You can't seriously be that dumb, there are only 5 possible results for an individual transaction.
1. the price paid is exactly the total price
2. the store gets an extra 1c
3. the store gets an extra 2c
4. the customer gets an extra 1c
5. the customer gets an extra 2c
There is no 3 and 4 cent option, as is pretty obvious if you think for about a quarter of second instead of just making shit up.
And if you are retarded enough to care, then just always arrange to but things which total $X.02. Congratulations, you save 2c on every transaction you make. Of course the time required to make sure the transaction ends in 2, and the extra items you have to buy to do so will probably make it not worth while - but feel free to stick it to the man!
For everyone else it averages out.
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In Australia & NZ the tax is included in the price of each item, whereas in Canada & USA the tax is applied afterwards. Prices in Canada / USA usually end in a 5, 0 or 9, but it is the tax being applied which gets you one of the other digits in the penny column. They would have to adjust to a system of includi
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If you think the PSA (now ACCC) don't treat their guidelines as law, try not following them (to the detriment of consumers) and see how fast they manage to frame it as a breach of the Trade Practices Act. If a supermarket tried rounding up from 2c to 5c they'd be in court quicker than you could say "the Trade Practices Act 1974". Of course they could choos
Mil rate, anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
All "hard money" is just an accounting fiction anyway. As are paper money and credit.
Paper? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Paper? (Score:4, Informative)
There's a great google answer here:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=7
"You are correct, that the only criminal statute regulating the destruction or defacement of U.S. currency requires fraudulent intent."
There are a few famous classroom science experiments that involve the destruction of pennies. Here's hoping that's still legal.
Re:Paper? (Score:4, Informative)
"You are correct, that the only criminal statute regulating the destruction or defacement of U.S. currency requires fraudulent intent." only applies to *coins*
Further down, there's a statute related to bills, which our researcher
"Note that this is also an intent-based crime. An element of the offense is "...intent to render such [currency] unfit to be reissued.""
So lighting your cigar with a bill might just be illegal after all. However, under these laws, dissolving a penny in acid isn't.
There's a bit more here:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=4
K Foundation burned one million pounds (Score:3, Interesting)
No discussion of currency destruction is complete without mention of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty of KLF burning one million pounds [wikipedia.org].
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"precious metals" in pennies? (Score:5, Informative)
they make them out of an electroplated nickel alloy now..
Dare i say it shouldn't just be oil we should be concerned about running out?
JUNK METAL coins are now worth more than their face value... I think this is a sign that asteroid mining could be feasible (the average nickel iron monster is worth several trillian.. not counting any incidental precious metals)
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Re:"precious metals" in pennies? (Score:5, Informative)
The previous composition (95% copper/5% zinc) went back to 1962. 1864-1962 it was 95% copper/5% zinc/tin alloy, except in 1943 they were zinc-plated steel.
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By the way, if you stack some pre-'81 pennies alternating with post-'82 pennies and heat the whole mass over a bunsen burner, when the zinc melts the whole works fuses with a blue flash and you can pry big pretty pieces of brass out of the mass. It works much better if you melt the old ones, then drop the new ones into the melt, because the zinc dissolves before oxidizing, b
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they make them out of an electroplated nickel alloy now..
No to both of those, as it says in the article. They stopped making pennies out of copper in 1981 and they're now made of copper coated zinc.
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It could be worth significantly more than that if you threaten to smash it into somewhere important!
One MILLION dollars! Muahahahaha! Muahahahahahaha!
*ahem*
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Pennies were 95% copper until they changed the composition to copper coated zinc in 1982 (I think the 1983 penny was the first year they actually made pennies with the new mix). Dimes, Quarters, Half-Dollars and (I think) Dollars were silver until 1964. That is why you don't normally see any dimes or quarters from before the '60s in your change.
Re:"precious metals" in pennies? (Score:5, Informative)
They stopped making em out of copper before the 50's (I forget exactly when its finals week XD)
I'll give you some slack for finals week, but you are off by three decades. Pennies were made of 95% copper until the mid 80's. Dimes, quarters, half-dollars and full-sized full dollars (i.e. not sacagawea-sized) were made of silver until 1963.
(Yes, I am a coin collector)
they make them out of an electroplated nickel alloy now..
Zinc, actually, not nickel.
Dare i say it shouldn't just be oil we should be concerned about running out?
Well, not exactly a misplaced point, but we can recycle metals, hence the very problem the article was about. We can't recycle oil once it's been burnt.
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Re:redundant posting? (Score:5, Funny)
Just get rid of pennies (Score:4, Insightful)
Intrinsic Value (Score:4, Funny)
How much does it take to refine the metal? (Score:5, Interesting)
My second question is how much would it cost to refine these metals to make them worth the most? Copper prices are sky high right now but a lump of melted pennies probably wouldn't be able to be sold as a "copper" since there are a number of other metals involved. Is this something that can really be profitable?
Re:How much does it take to refine the metal? (Score:5, Informative)
As much as I can understand why they do not want people melting down these coins, how much is the metal really worth in it's "raw" form unrefined?
About 1.7 cents for a current penny, about 2.3cents for a pre-1986 penny, about 7.5 cents for a nickel.
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That's a really great question. The deal is, at least for silver and gold coins - they are kept in their coin form but traded at or near melt value. There are several reasons for this. First, a
get rid of pennies altogether? (Score:5, Insightful)
here is an article i have found to be particularly illuminating.
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a981009a.htm
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Re:get rid of pennies altogether? (Score:5, Funny)
Why not get rid of nickles and dimes as well?
And why we're at it, let's get rid of all paper currency, replacing it with coins in the following denominations: $1, $5, $20, $50. Then we can stop printing money to replace all those torn dollar bills.
Think of the affect on crime. While you could carry a couple thousand dollars on your person if you really needed to, the drug kingpin who wants payment of a million in cash is going to need a forklift, not a suitcase. Similar issues of phyiscal inconvenience will deter counterfeiting.
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Or we could, I dunno, not do that.
Re:get rid of pennies altogether? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:get rid of pennies altogether? (Score:5, Interesting)
"Juicies" in the Phillipines have perfected a very entertaining way of picking up stacked change from atop a San Miguel bottle. The more skillful can return the stack coin-by-coin.
Shouts to any Nipa Hut or Fire Empire patrons in da house!
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Like strippers don't get fucked enough as it is. You think they won't start paying back progressively lower percentages of those tips when they turn that funny-money over for real dough? You underestimate the sliminess of the average "upstanding restauranteur".
Devalue (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Devalue (Score:5, Insightful)
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Should people decide that, say, the euro is a safer place for their money, the US government will have to raise the prices it pays to borrow money, and the economy overall will suffer a serious squeeze.
But the c
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But this is government we're talking about, when has a government actually done either?
Copper's value is up worldwide (Score:3, Interesting)
Phone companies around the world are having problems with people cutting down their lines to steal the copper.
The US had a previous round of making it illegal to melt down coins - for a number of years in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the US was on a bimetallic standard, with both gold and silver exchangable at a fixed
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At risk of sounding like Stallman, I suggest creating the habit of referring to the "Federal Reserve" as "The Federal Reserve Corporation." This will help to drive home the fact that the U.S. monetary system is in the private hands of bankers and not under governmental control which is supposed to be proxy to the peop
My question (Score:5, Funny)
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Possibly do as other countries did... (Score:5, Interesting)
And for folks who'll ask, replacing cash with electronic transactions isn't the answer. I for one like the anonymity of cash and the fact that I'm carrying a physical object of known value that can handle some pretty heavy abuse before becoming worthless.
-b.
How can they do this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bah, I'm too busy anyways (Score:5, Funny)
Pennies (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Stores like the $X.99 price point, because it subtly makes people think they're paying $X rather than $X+1. $X.95 is also popular, and could work with only nickels.
2. Sales tax is based on percentage, so even if you have a round price like $1.00, you may end up with something like $1.07.
OK, 3 reasons if you're paying for gas with cash. But note that gas stations already advertise prices to the thousandth of a dollar -- as far as I know, the US has never actually minted a mil -- and they already get rounded up to the nearest penny. I'm sure gas stations would be quite happy to round to the nearest nickel instead.
Of course, given how many transactions are electronic these days, withdrawing the penny wouldn't necessarily alter credit or debit transactions.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill_(currency) [wikipedia.org]
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Since I got a Prius, I have been keeping a record of my gas purchases. It turns out the two gas stations I go to often (a Holiday and a BP) compute the total price based on their th
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Do AWAY with pennies and nickles (Score:4, Insightful)
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That said, I'm pretty much supportive of nuking the penny, making $1 a coin, and creating a $5 coin (but keeping the bill). But thats just my $2.
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Says who? There is no good economic rationale for keeping it.
1) Other countries have made similar moves without any significant pains (e.g., Australia).
2) The vast majority of transactions are non-cash transactions these days and they can still be computed in cents (or, for that matter, even fractions of a cent).
3) Even amongst cash transactions
Re:And you'll get screwed every time by rounding u (Score:3, Informative)
Every nation that has done this rounds to the nearest nickel, not the next highest.
£1/£2? (Score:2)
Pennies on a Railroad Track, Anyone? (Score:2, Flamebait)
And stop linking New York Times, you [expletive deleted]s. I don't want to fucking register nor do I want to have to take the goddamn time to go to bugmenot.com [bugmenot.com] to get a NY Times uid & pwd. Here's some links that don't require registration to read: here [usatoday.com] , here [denverpost.com] , here [cnn.com] , and here [nwsource.com] . Anyway, now that they said don't melt those coins, guess what they are going to do? Melt
under what authority? (Score:5, Interesting)
Under what authority can the US Mint create new law? The US Mint, the Secret Service and the Treasury are all in the enforcement, not the legislative branch.
Some AC said it was illegal to mutilate or deface paper money. Uh, no, it's not. It's also not illegal to cut up a US coin in some artistic fashion and sell it for a higher amount; this is done all the time. In terms of defacement, you can't stick a picture of Kennedy on a quarter and try to redeem it as a half-dollar, and the same goes for gluing a "20" on the corner of a one-dollar bill. That's simple fraud, in this case called counterfeiting.
Re:under what authority? (Score:5, Informative)
And to blow your mind even further, the judicial branch makes law too! It's called common law. The federal judiciary and 49 of the 50 states operate under common law. If you don't like it, you have to move to Louisiana or France.
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Okay, but federal executive agencies can only make laws pertaining to those areas in which the legislative branch has delegated to them the authority to make laws.
The Federal Communications Commission, for example, could not establish a law increasing the penalty for possession of marijuana -- it is not in their jurisdiction.
The question, then, is whether the Department of the Treasury is authorized by Congress to prevent citi
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These folks sure act like it's been illegal for a while now. In terms of cutting up a US coin and sell it for more, it's illegal, but not often enforced. Just like Speed Limit laws where it's illegal to drive faster then a particular speed, but is flaunted regularly.
Kirby
Reverse split... (Score:2)
Other than being completely impractical, it's the perfect plan!
Best solution (Score:2)
So, let me summarize... (Score:2)
Copper Washer: $0.10
Making a copper washer by poking a hole in a copper penny: $10,000.00 fine
That about it?
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For everything else, life takes VISA(tm)
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Or, rather: For everything else, there's MasterCard. :-)
Watch some TV dude!
casting and rolling my own tinfoil hat (Score:3, Interesting)
They should just add some sulphur to the coins. It makes them more machinable (not much use for stamped coins though) and utterly destroys their value for recycling.
Maybe the real reason they're doing this is that they've added RFID chips to coins and they don't want people destroying lots of them.
Canadian cents (Score:3, Informative)
Another Solution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Another Solution (Score:5, Funny)
Against the law to deface currency? (Score:3, Informative)
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Plastic?
I mean, it's not like we're running short on oil.
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Seriously though, I wonder what they will use for the new coins....
Some countries plug their smaller-value coins to reduce the amount of metal in their construction.
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Incorrect in the US. It's illegal to do so with fraudulent or malicious intent. Ripping someone else's $100 bill to bits is illegal. As is ripping a bill in half in such a way so both halves look like more than 50% and trying to pass the two halves of the bill as valid currency.
-b.
ripping other peoples money (Score:2)
Alternative explanation? (Score:3, Interesting)
Consider for a moment that gold and silver are normally used as a hedge against inflation. Over the last 20 years they have not kept up with inflation though. If you do any reading on the subject some claim this is due to central banks manipulating the price of gold/silver to help disguise inflation. If the above is true, gold and silver prices would stay depressed, but inflation would show up in other commodities. E.G. base metals as they have not