When Is It That A Penny Goes For A Pretty Penny?

When it is a United States 1793 Penny and just sold for $300,000.

Fox News: Rare US penny sells for $300G at auction in Florida

One of the first circulating coins released from the US Mint into circulation, only 500 have survived in various conditions.

Note that these pennies were rather large with a diameter of 26.5 mm, and quite substantial as a dollar worth of these pennies weighed 3 pounds.

Dollar Coins Still Not Catching On

The Detroit Free Press: Congress explores ditching $1 bills for $1 coins

About every year it seems, we get the story of the Mint pushes for the dollar bill to be replaced with the dollar coin. Just like last year, it doesn't seem to be catching on with the public or Congress.

While its true that switching from the dollar bills to the coins will save money - allegedly about $146 Million dollars per year according to the GAO and the Mint, people just prefer the one dollar note to the coins. (I do love how they stretch the time period to 30 years so they can claim it will allegedly save 4.4 Billion dollars).

Do note that the $146,000,000 in alleged savings is the equivalent to about 24 minutes of federal government spending this year (Total federal spending divided by minutes per year). If the committee took any longer than 24 minutes to discuss it, they were wasting more time than the issue was worth.

And, just as with the Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea dollars, the President's series of Dollar coins that first were released in 2007 are still not catching on:

Americans spurn the $1 coins featuring images of U.S. presidents. About $1 billion worth of the coins sits in government vaults, unwanted.

The real interesting part is the claim this year that the dollar coin costs 13 cents to manufacture, while last year the cost was quoted as 30 cents.

Is this the case of some great new manufacturing efficiency or did someone get their facts wrong?

In any case, until there is a decision for a total withdrawal of Dollar Bills from circulation, don't expect the coins to catch on any time soon.

No Pennys For Your Thoughts- Canada to Scrap The 1 Cent Coin

The Detroit News: Canada to rid itself of the penny

Canada has announced it is scrapping the penny.

The humble one-cent piece is set to disappear from Canadian pockets, a victim of inflation.

Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced in the federal budget on Thursday that the Royal Canadian Mint will strike the last of the little coins this fall.

The budget says the cost of minting a penny has risen to 1.6 cents or $11 million a year. The budget says some Canadians consider the penny more of a nuisance than a useful coin.

At a cost of production more than 1.5 times its face value, it does make cents to give it up and round prices up or down to the nearest 5 cents.

The US got rid of the half cent in 1857.

The US penny has had a good run, but when it is costing 2.41 cents to produce every penny, it doesn't make much cents and in fact wastes over $60,200,000 to keep it around.

To think that the penny, a once proud silver coin modeled on and equivalent in value to the denarius (hence the old "1d" as a notation of its value) is now reduced to a 99% zinc slug coated with copper plating is sad for a traditionalist, but it is time to give it up in the face of inflation and the march of time.

Dollar Coins, Dollar Coins Everywhere But No One Wants to Use Them

The Baltimore Sun: Dollar coins piling up at Baltimore reserve bank

a dimly lit underground vault a block from Camden Yards, the Federal Reserve is holding millions of dollars in cash that nobody wants.

The money — stored in cloth and plastic sacks piled high on metal shelving units — is in the unloved form of dollar coins, some of them never used. But a 2005 law requires the reserve bank to keep ordering coins regardless of its stockpile, and so vaults in Baltimore and around the country are filling up.

Americans just don't appreciate dollar coins, even if they do cost less to make and last longer, not to mention actually make the US Treasury profit.

The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office reported in March that switching from paper to metal would save taxpayers $5.5 billion over 30 years.
....
It costs 30 cents to make a $1 coin, but the Fed purchases it for face value — and the U.S. Treasury pockets the difference. In 2010, the Mint put about 400 million $1 coins into circulation, which means the government made a profit of about $280 million.

We prefer greenbacks to the coins as they're lighter to carry and more convenient, and the shiny golden coins slightly bigger than a quarter don't feel like dollars to people.

Until the government makes a law and ends production of the $1 banknotes,as occurred in Canada when the loonie was rolled out, you're going to see this problem continue as people choose not to use them. From the Susan B. Anthony, to the Sacajawea, and now we're looking at a surplus of Rutherford B. Hayes dollars as people stick to paper.

Beck, who has worked at the Baltimore branch for 27 years, would not say how many coins are stored in Baltimore, but the Fed's board of governors told Congress in June that the reserve system is holding more than $1.2 billion in dollar coins at 28 cash offices across the country.

Officials expect the number of dollar coins sitting in storage to grow to $2 billion by 2016.

I, for one, would certainly be willing to take some off their hands if space is a concern.

Heck, I'd even promise to carry and spend them, and thus further stimulate the economy rather than let them tarnish sitting in a vault.

US Mint Mistake - Some Dollars don't Trust in God.

A number of the new US One Dollar Coins, the first in the new Presidential series featuring George Washington, escaped the Philadelphia mint and entered circulation missing the inscription "In God we Trust" on the Edge of the coins.

U.S. Mint goof: Unknown number of new dollar coins missing 'In God We Trust'

Joann Loviglio / Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA -- An unknown number of new George Washington dollar coins were
mistakenly struck without their edge inscriptions, including "In God We Trust,"
and are fetching around $50 apiece online.

The properly struck dollar coins, bearing the likeness of the nation's first
president, are inscribed along the edge with "In God We Trust," "E Pluribus
Unum" and the year and mint mark. They made it past inspectors and went into
circulation Feb. 15.

The U.S. Mint struck 300 million of the coins, which are golden in color and
slightly larger and thicker than a quarter.

About half were made in Philadelphia and the rest in Denver. So far the mint
has only received reports of error coins coming from Philadelphia, mint
spokeswoman Becky Bailey said.

These coins are currently selling for a premium on Ebay:

Ron Guth,
president of Professional Coin Grading Service, one of the world's largest coin
authentication companies, said he believes that at least 50,000 error coins
were put in circulation.

"The first one sold for $600 before everyone knew how common they actually
were," he said. "They're going for around $40 to $60 on eBay now, and they'll
probably settle in the $50 range."

So don't expect a fortune if you find one, and given there were at least 50 thousand released with the missing inscription, its unlikely they will appreciate much beyond the expected $50 premium anytime soon, so if you got 'em, join the hordes now on ebay where they are selling like crazy for $200 plus.

Don't Melt or Export Your Pennies....

A new regulation from the US Treasury:

NEW FEDERAL REGULATION PROHIBITING EXPORTATION, MELTING, OR TREATMENT OF UNITED STATES ONE-CENT AND 5-CENT COINS

On December 12, 2006, United States Mint Director Edmund Moy approved an
interim rule that generally prohibits the exportation, melting, or treatment of
United States one-cent coins (pennies) and 5-cent coins (nickels), which became
effective upon publication in the Federal Register on December 20, 2006.
Because of the rising commodity prices of copper, nickel and zinc, the value of
the metal content of both pennies and nickels now exceeds their respective face
values. Accordingly, there is concern that speculators could remove pennies and
nickels from circulation and sell them as scrap metal for profit. Widespread
withdrawal of pennies and nickels from circulation could cause coin shortages,
and it would be extremely costly to replenish them, given prevailing metal
prices and production costs.

This measure has been implemented to protect the coinage of the United States.
A violation of the new restrictions can lead to a fine of up to $10,000,
imprisonment of up to 5 years, and forfeiture of the subject coins or metal.
The authority for implementing this regulation is Title 31 of the United States
Code, Section 5111(d).

Now I doubt this regulation prohibits you from taking some spare change across the border when you go to Canada or Mexico, but if you take more than $5 in change in these coins out of the country, or if you ship more than $100 in these coins out of the country in any one shipment for legitimate coinage and numismatic purposes you're in trouble.

A copy of the Federal Register with this regulation can be found here.

US to Release new one dollar coins

Base metal dollar coins have not had a history of success in the United States.

Since the demise of the silver dollar, both the old quarter-sized Susan B Anthony dollar and the recent Sacajawea Dollar met with very little sucess and even less common usage.

Since these base metal coins have no intrinsic value and are heavier and more cumbersome than dollar bills, they have not been well received or circulated.

Not letter past performance stop them, the Treasury is about to release a new series of dollar coins with portraits of the Presidents on them.

While I believe this will be a hit with collectors and may get the general public's interest much like the State Quarter series has done, I don't believe these will be accepted any better than the dollar coins that have gone before.

Short of removing the Dollar Bill from circulation as Canada did when they introduced the Loonie, The American public will not replace paper fiat money bills with metallic fiat money coins.