A penny saved is 1.6 cents earned…
Copper prices have been in the news lately, thanks in part to a three week gain. While not quite at the levels seen in the middle of ’06 and the middle of ’08, copper and other metals are becoming quite pricey, which leads us to today’s Dinner Topic. When the smart guys smoking pipes at the other end of the room start talking about commodity prices, throw out this interesting nugget: currently it costs approximately 1.6 cents to produce a penny.1
Make sure to note that the cost includes production and not just the metallic value of the coin. If you’re going to put your two cents in, you might as well be accurate. You should also know that a penny is only 2.5% copper; the rest (97.5%) is made of zinc. Before 1983, most pennies were 95% copper.
A nickel? In 2007, it cost almost 9.5 cents to produce, but now it’s closer to 5.8 cents. Oddly enough, now a nickel has 30 times the percentage weighting of copper (75% copper, 25% nickel) than a penny. 2 These trivial numbers will help you the next time someone offers you a penny for your thoughts!
Read on:
Mint.com – The Financial Burden of the Penny
CoinUpdate.com – U.S. Mint Cost to Produce the Penny and Nickel
Coinflation.com – Current Melt Value of Coins (note: production costs NOT included)
- The figure is based on the 2009 level ($0.0162), so rising copper prices and flat to rising zinc prices suggest that the current cost may actually be MORE than 1.6 cents but cannot be confirmed. ↩
- http://news.coinupdate.com/us-mint-cost-to-produce-the-penny-and-nickel-0137/ ↩
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