Realcent.org

Interesting perspective about the Canadian Cent and what it takes to scrap them. ANSWER: Think bigger than your truck.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/penny-wise/

Nice to know were they went.

Magnets and water tables composed of different chemicals will separate the pennies based on their different metal contents. Because pennies have different densities — those minted before 1997 are between 95 percent and 98 percent copper and in the late 1990’s the mint experimented with zinc pennies and then switched to steel because it was more cost effective — steel pennies will be drawn to magnets whereas the zinc and copper pennies will float. Since 2000 the penny has been 94 percent steel, 1.5 percent nickel and 4.5 percent copper plating

So my wife said to me what are you doing in the kitchen as I am dumping a zinc,copper and a steel Canadian cent into the sink only to see them all sink.

henrysmedford wrote:

Magnets and water tables composed of different chemicals will separate the pennies based on their different metal contents. Because pennies have different densities — those minted before 1997 are between 95 percent and 98 percent copper and in the late 1990’s the mint experimented with zinc pennies and then switched to steel because it was more cost effective — steel pennies will be drawn to magnets whereas the zinc and copper pennies will float. Since 2000 the penny has been 94 percent steel, 1.5 percent nickel and 4.5 percent copper plating

So my wife said to me what are you doing in the kitchen as I am dumping a zinc,copper and a steel Canadian cent into the sink only to see them all sink.

Filling a water table with mercury would allow you to float the cents past a magnet. At the end of the table, the copper/zinc would need to be heated enough to boil off any stray mercury, which could then be distilled back into liquid.

A chemist could probably find safer chemicals to work with, but the mercury is an easy example for us to understand.

Engineer wrote:

henrysmedford wrote:

Magnets and water tables composed of different chemicals will separate the pennies based on their different metal contents. Because pennies have different densities — those minted before 1997 are between 95 percent and 98 percent copper and in the late 1990’s the mint experimented with zinc pennies and then switched to steel because it was more cost effective — steel pennies will be drawn to magnets whereas the zinc and copper pennies will float. Since 2000 the penny has been 94 percent steel, 1.5 percent nickel and 4.5 percent copper plating

So my wife said to me what are you doing in the kitchen as I am dumping a zinc,copper and a steel Canadian cent into the sink only to see them all sink.

Filling a water table with mercury would allow you to float the cents past a magnet. At the end of the table, the copper/zinc would need to be heated enough to boil off any stray mercury, which could then be distilled back into liquid.

A chemist could probably find safer chemicals to work with, but the mercury is an easy example for us to understand.

"I did not know that!"

From what I have seen and done personally for scrap metal... magnet separation and then eddy current separation. The eddy current separator we used cost around 150K - I guess if you set it up for pennies it would work.

The Canadian Mint has a coin sorter that will sort out the coins. I'm not sure where the fluid information came from but I don't believe that is a method they used.

Also the mint was melting the nickels and other coins in the USA. It might have been to costly to ship the pennies so they may have switched to a Canadian refiner.

“It would take thousands of coins, truck loads, to be worth melting down,” he said. “At the end of the day, yes it is probably better to not give [the pennies] back to the government, but there are very few people who have the space or the ability to store them in bulk. Bringing them to a bank or a coin dealer is much easier.”

It's just so much eeeeeasierrrr.
Yes. Yes it is.

Very interesting. I've been looking for that information for a long time. On the one hand, I'm glad to know how many they've collected already- 4 billion- which is higher than I would have guessed. On the other hand, it sounds like they haven't actually started melting them at all yet- is that right? That raises some questions... are they just waiting until they have enough? Do they need to have a lot at a time to make melting profitable? Will they stop once they're running low? I assume they aren't getting nearly as many any more as they were in the beginning...

Let's imagine for a minute... and I know it's a stretch, but stay with me... suppose they were able to recall and re-purpose EVERY SINGLE CANADIAN SMALL CENT EVER MADE. Here are some stats toward that end.

Beginning data:
1920 to 1941 total mintage: 310,191,141. Composition: 95.5% copper, 3% tin, 1.5% zinc, weight: 3.24g
1942 to 1977 total mintage: 7,898,416,832. Composition: 98% copper, 0.5% tin, 1.5% zinc, weight: 3.24
1978 to 1979 total mintage: 1,665,113,600. Composition: 98% copper, 1.75% tin, 0.25% zinc, weight: 3.24g
1980 to 1981 total mintage: 2,121,268,500. Composition: 98% copper, 1.75% tin, 0.25% zinc, weight: 2.8g
1982 to 1996 total mintage: 10,815,061,350. Composition: 98% copper, 1.75% tin, 0.25% zinc, weight: 2.5
1997 to 1999 total mintage: 2,639,071,000. Composition: 98.4% zinc, 1.6% copper plating, weight: 2.25g
2000 to 2012 (two types) total mintage: 9,718,919,000. Composition A: 94% steel, 1.5% nickel, 4.5% copper plating, weight 2.35g... Composition B: 98.4% zinc, 1.6% copper plating, weight 2.25g. One (false) assumption which will shape the following figures: equal production of zinc and steel planchets from 2000-2012.

COPPER TONNAGE PER TYPE (to 5 significant digits)
1920-1941: 1058.0 tons
1942-1977: 27645
1978-1979: 5828.0
1980-1981: 6416.3
1982-1996: 29208
1997-1999: 104.73
2000-2012: 751.54
There were 856 tons of copper used to PLATE the cents of 1997-2012? Apparently.

TOTAL MINTAGE: 35.168 billion
TOTAL CONTENT:
COPPER: 71,011 tons
ZINC: 19,134 tons
STEEL: 11,581 tons (all in the 2000-2012 steelies of course)
TIN: 1,086.9 tons
NICKEL: 184.80 tons (same 13-year span as the steelies)


MINTAGES UNDER 10 MILLION, for all you collectors to consider:
1921 7,601,627
1922 1,243,635
1923 1,019,022
1924 1,593,195
1925 1,000,622
1926 2,143,372
1927 3,553,928
1928 9,144,860
1930 2,538,613
1931 3,842,776
1934 7,042,358
1935 7,526,400
1936 8,768,769
And, by the way, if you just save exactly what many do in the USA - the "pre-40" years - you would have all twenty of the lowest mintages. See:
1920 15,483,923
1929 12,159,840
1932 21,316,190
1933 12,079,310
1937 10,090,231
1938 18,365,608
1939 21,600,319