Stewart – That is a most excellent suggestion in every way, and I couldn’t agree with you more. With this kind of enlightened strategic thinking you will no doubt be able to merit the somewhat dubious honor of being as completely ignored by the Mint as the rest of us who so often engage in discussing this very situation here are. 😉

Only mint the profitable proof and uncirc samples, otherwise stop the production, or mint them once every decade, nobody uses them in todays debit/credit card world. I haven’t received a dollar coin in circulation in perhaps 5 years, what a waste of money unless we stop printing paper bills.

Silverboy, Lee, Munzen & Brian,

If WE were on the Mint’s advisory board, our suggestion would be a simple “Stop minting a coin that costs more to make than it’s worth and that nobody uses anyway”, but then, we’re not, and they won’t. 🙂

Old Collector

From what I’ve read, a lot of them only circulate a few times before leaving the cash stream, with a fairly large number simply being lost or discarded. Hoarding is also significant but from it’s from the coins being put in jars, piggy banks, etc. due to their low value. That intentional accumulation seems to be as a painless way to get a few extra bucks by redeeming them at a bank or (foolishly) at a coin machine.

The Mint experimented with aluminum cents and found them to be too light to be practical. Other countries have had similar problems. My 2¢ [/lame_joke] is that the cent’s low recovery rate would seem to indicate the denomination’s really more trouble than it’s worth.

Joe Brown – You of course know the old expression “penny wise and pound foolish”, right? Well, now that’s been taken a step further and someone has clearly figured out how to be “penny foolish” too! 🙂

Old Collector

Oops. My arithmetic is wrong up above for the following reason. $11,648,000 is indeed the total cost of manufacturing and otherwise processing those 640,000,000 cents; however, since the U.S. Mint does receive a face value payment of $6,400,000 for them from the Federal Reserve, the actual dollar amount that the Mint is out of pocket as a result of this transaction is in fact $5,648,000 and not the $11,648,000 as posted previously. Sorry about that.

Old Collector