A new poll by Harris Interactive® reflects American’s favor for the Lincoln penny, its preference for the $1 bill and the uphill battle the U.S. Mint is fighting to get new Presidential $1 coins into daily circulation.
Presidential $1 dollar coins not making it into circulation
For the latter two topics, there has been no shortage of articles within numismatic publications relaying the overwhelming realities of the near impossible task of a dollar coin competing head on with the lighter, and more convenient to use dollar bill. And while the word "many" has been used to describe those who have not yet seen the Presidential $1 coins used in circulation since their 2007 introduction, an overwhelming 75% of Harris Poll respondents say they have not seen a single dollar coin in circulation.
Given the U.S. Mint produced nearly 941 million presidential $1 coins in 2007 alone, or enough for every U.S. man, woman and child to each have three, the 75% figure highlights that while the coins may be attractive to collectors, so far they have not proven practical for use. In that regard, they lose to the paper dollar just like previous $1 coins.
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A new bill was introduced yesterday that proposes the elimination of the Canadian penny. Abolishing a country’s smallest denominated coin is not new. It has certainly happened in the past, and several countries are publicly debating the issue or implementing a recall of their smallest coin right now.
As examples, in recent months and weeks there has been talk of Russia removing their one-kopek, Denmark saying goodbye to their 25-øre and Malaysia abandoning their one-sen.
Unlike the dilemma other countries face, like the U.S., the cost to manufacture the Canadian penny is actually less than its value. That’s one less obstacle to overcome for those who would like to keep it.
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Is the demise of the Lincoln penny approaching? Public sentiments appears slightly shifted toward its continual survival and the penny is guaranteed to be around for the next several years. The newly designed pennies for 2009 celebrating the bicentennial birth of Lincoln will see to that by itself.
But is sentiment for the penny changing and moving toward its elimination?
While the House is debating changes to the composition of coinage in order to make coins like the penny and nickel once again profitable to mint, more focus is placed on whether the penny should be produced at all. Even the latest House hearing had congressman pondering the pennies’ continuation.
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United States Mint Director Ed Moy will testify before the House Financial Services Subcommittee tomorrow, March 11. A CoinNews article Friday discussed House bill H.R. 5512. It is that bill for which Mr. Moy will testify.
H.R. 5512, named the ‘Coin Modernization and Taxpayer Savings Act of 2008‘, seeks to change the composition of metals in coins in order to maintain or bring back their profitability - the penny and nickel, for example, cost more to produce than what they are worth. The penny costs approximately 1.7 cents to make and the nickel about 10 cents.
In regards to the hearing, U.S. Representative Luis V. Gutierres commented:
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Coin collectors are experienced in placing and arranging coins within albums, folders, holders and the like. Many collectors also enjoy showing their collection to family, friends and other collectors. However, the thought of taking collected coins, artistically arranging them into a portrait and sharing the results with the public is something, likely, most numismatists would never contemplate.
One father and son team did just that. Read the rest of this entry »
Sometimes there is more to a coin than its intrinsic or collectible value. This is one of those times …
Dale Earnhardt Sr. had won many races, but never the Daytona 500. That is, until Feb. 15, 1998 and the day after he first met six year old Wessa Miller.
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The CoinNews Saturday eNewsletter and the short post Sunday morning included information about the Sunday night 60 Minutes news segment titled, Should We Make Cents?
Morley Safer reports on how the penny and nickel are worth less than the U.S. government cost to manufacture them - the penny almost two cents and the nickel almost a dime.
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Copper used to be the problem step-child of metals. It was either not thought about or considered in a negative context, like the mental picture of paying for the repair of copper piping underneath the sink.
For some, copper has turned to gold. And better, it wasn’t purchased first - it just found its way onto some junk pile in the garage or back yard and it magically turned into money.
Today, if you have a pile of it sitting around, you can gather it up and make some decent bucks at $2.92 per pound. Even better, a scrap metal entrepreneur is likely to ask and do the work for you just to get a percentage of the return.
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Every year New York City children from participating schools collect pennies from family, friends and neighbors.
These pennies don’t make their way into piggy banks or Lincoln coin collections.
Instead, the children put their pennies together and they’re literally trucked to the Penny Harvest Field, an enormous and specially designed penny-holding structure in Rockefeller Center.
It’s here where the children can see the massiveness of their collection and can better grasp how their combined efforts and hard work will pay off for charities they’ll later select.
Several Penny Harvest Field Stats of Success
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Take the new two-click poll on the CoinNews website asking that very question (found in the upper right). Surprisingly, at least so far, results have been close to evenly mixed.
Compared to the U.S., interesting and different dynamics are in play with other countries and their small change. Several countries are actually suffering through serious coinage shortages due to hoarding.
Two countries in particular, Argentine and China, have experienced an up tick in entrepreneur-like activity where people find and resell small change - for a profit - to businesses or individuals who are experiencing shortages.
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