Re: Penny Controversy


"Tony Clayton" <tony.clayton.1962@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ef5e1e4c4e%tony@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In a recent message Joe Fischer <joefischer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 24 Jul 2006 08:15:12 -0700, dwheeler@xxxxxxxx wrote:

The debate over continuing mintage of cents continues.

Would eliminating the cent from coinage be such a bad thing?

Of course. All things considered, it could be
a disaster, the scope of implementing the "elimination"
is far beyond anything ever attempted.
The number of cents currently "in circulation"
may exceed the total number of coins of all denominations
of all the other countries in the world (unless China has
more coins than I can imagine).
It would be far more sensible to just stop minting
cents in 1909, and not pass any legislation at all about
what merchants must or can do.
There is not enough room in mint or FRB vaults
to store them all.

Why store them? The older cents are bronze, and the newer
ones are copper plated zinc, which makes brass if melted.

Not exactly. Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, it is true, but copper
has to be the dominant ingredient by far. A copper-plated zinc cent is
99.2% zinc. Melt one down, and you end up with slightly impure zinc, not
brass.

Mr. Jaggers


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Over 4 dollar gas by summer?
    ... I was on my way to the scrap yard with some copper and brass today and the ... best price for regular I saw was $2.95 a gallon ... The average wage in 1907 was 22 cents per hour.. ...
    (rec.motorcycles.dirt)
  • Re: US mint plans to use more zinc, less copper and nickel
    ... That should be just wonderful for animals who swallow ... cents -- zinc and copper combined are highly toxic, so once the acids in the ... zinc poisoning. ... zinc toxicology on any animal who swallowed cents or unknown coinage. ...
    (rec.collecting.coins)
  • Re: US mint plans to use more zinc, less copper and nickel
    ... the stomach eat up the copper, the unfortunate one who swallowed ends up ... with zinc poisoning. ... to do zinc toxicology on any animal who swallowed cents or unknown ... There are a lot worse things animals could swallow that aren't being ...
    (rec.collecting.coins)
  • Re: Brass
    ... >>> Bass contains copper and zinc while bronze contains copper and tin. ... >>> rather to all alloys of copper with zinc or copper with tin ... >> there is no clear meaning to the word brass as it is translated. ...
    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: Worm gear material
    ... >>Copper and zinc make brass. ... >>no listing of anything useful on google with the information supplied. ...
    (sci.physics)
Loading