Major D**k,

You are EVIL, no two ways about it! You are so bad, I can’t even feel sorry for you! Evil & Pathetic!! You need to start back on your meds! 😉

Well, as always, Good Luck ALL, except one of You, lol!!!

The mint could do the same thing they did with the Kennedy half and Presidential dollars as long as Congress doesn’t tell the mint to completely stop penny production. Lack of real circulation of Innovation dollars doesn’t seem to keep the mint from offering several products.

The 2009 copper pennies will never hit $1000 like the scarce Lincolns, but it seems frequently being able to pick them up in proof or mint sets for virtually nothing is undervalued.

Gotta love it when a plan comes together!! Brandon did everything by the book too!! LMAO!!!

My understanding is that it is only illegal if I put them back in circulation. All those penny presses at tourist sites are legal.

the way it is supposed to be, congress makes the laws, the executive branch executes and enforces the laws, and the judicial branch steps in when there are conflicts or questions about the laws.

the law states that the mint can only make certain specified denominations, and shall (which means ‘must’) make them ‘as needed for commerce’. so, basically, as long as the mint gets orders for coins, they make them and send them out charging face value for them.

but it’s not hard for the phrase ‘as needed for commerce’ to be interepreted to mean that cents are not needed in commerce, as there’s ample evidence of that right now with the lack of circulation of cents, the low value of them, resistance to acceptance of more than a few of them at a time, etc. and if that were done, the only people that could have standing to sue would be the people who ordered cents but arent’ getting them, it’s not clear that the courts would force the government to produce a coin at a loss just to satisfy the banks.

there is nothing in the law that says that the mint cannot charge banks a fee for coins – currently they don’t because the government wants coins out there to foster commerce (which brings in taxes ultimately), but for coins that cost more to produce and due to their low value don’t circulate and thus don’t really foster commerce, it seems to me reasonable to just charge the banks a fee for each of these money-losing coins sufficient to cover the cost of making them – then no laws are broken by stopping minting because if banks are willing to pay for them they can have all they want.

but hey, i’m not in government, so i’ve no say in how to do this. but if i were, that’s what i would do.

or, you can get out the drill press and make cheap washers… oh wait, that’s not legal technically darn

we get a bit spoiled in the US that we have hardly demonetized any coin or currency, about the only thing that comes close to that is trade dollar (which was also technically re-monetized years later), and the 1933 withdrawal of gold coins and notes (and not even really demonetized, just made outright illegal to hold privately). and that makes it a bit shocking when you find out some foreign coin or bill you brought home from a trip years ago suddenly became worthless on a return trip.

the UK got rid of their ‘hockey puck’ pound coin a while back in favor of a bimetallic one due to intense counterfeiting – i had a nice handful of these from a previous trip and of course I was going just after the deadline for them to be accepted at stores, though I could deposit them at a bank, not having an account there was going to make that difficult. then i found out that one store called ‘poundland’ (like a ‘dollar tree’ here) that was still taking them after the official deadline, so I went there and used all I had on candy and biscuits I could bring back. i held one back as a souvenir, to go along with my other demonetized coins (pre-euro francs, lire, deutschemarks, etc.)

Even if trump doesn’t have the authority to stop penny production, this sends a signal to the Federal Reserve, Walmart, Circle K, Chase, Wells Fargo and others that would love to see the penny dissappear, that they can stop handling pennies. If the Fed and banks stop ordering pennies, the end will come soon. People will just top off their cookie jar whenever they get a penny. The zinc lobby has been able to influence Congress for far too long. 35 years ago, I attended a House subcommittee on banking, and asked the Chairman Frank Annunzio why the penny was still being produced. He responded ” the American people want to keep the penny”.

The mint will probably continue putting the cent in sets. Think of all the Lincoln collectors that will be forced to buy the mint set for $40 and get stuck with all those Innovation Dollars, or whatever stupid idea Congress comes up with next, just to get the penny. The recent proof and special Lincoln Cents have lower mintages than the 1909 S VDB, but can be had for a couple bucks. I have always been bullish on the 2009 proof and satin Lincolns eventually becoming valuable. Just picked up a 2009 silver proof set for $50, essentially getting the Lincolns free after figuring the silver and 5 dollar coins.

France, Belgium and Nederland, amongst others have demonetized all their coins and most of their banknotes, and I hate it. The 5 Guilder, originally worth over 2 Dollars and the French 10 Franc, worth $1.50 have been completely worthless for over 20 years. I was in Belgium 30 years ago, and handed the cashier some copper nickel 5 francs, and the cashier went nuts.