Steel Nickels coming?

[Lemon Thrower]

bill introduced in Congress last week.

http://news.coinupdate.com/bill-seeks-s ... ters-1952/

[angel2004]

Yes, read this as well. They also want to make all coins of steel. Complete debasement.

[Klark Cent]

we're against this, right? it will save the government money, but they would just waste it somewhere else.

[hobo finds]

I am sure big copper is. What will need to be changed, to accept steel coinage? Most vending machines should take them if they are the same size weight. Coinstars would as I believe they sort coins with a magnet. I wonder what else... And as I look at the pile of zinc coins I have that are rotting away, steel would last longer.

[scyther]

I think steel nickels (and pennies if we still have them) are a good idea, but it's really not necessary for quarters and dimes yet. They could also use zinc for nickels, although it really is a bad material to make coins out of. Just look at how the zinc pennies age...

[Klark Cent]

if they make the change, what will the 5-cent coin be called?

"silver dollars" became "dollar coins".

so maybe half-dime?

[scyther]

if they make the change, what will the 5-cent coin be called?

"silver dollars" became "dollar coins".

so maybe half-dime?

I'm quite sure it will still be called a nickel, much like like Ike dollars are generally called silver dollars by non-numismatically inclined people, and steel cans are called tin cans.

[Copper Catcher]

http://news.coinupdate.com/wp-content/u ... rosion.jpg
Well I think it is safe to say that aluminized steel is not an option. The report said: Aluminum alloys were fond to jam or destroy coin acceptance or coin handing equipment, removing this composition from consideration

Also according to the report if they want to save money copper plated steel is not a option either.....After accounting for metal and production cost, copper plated steel one-cent coins would offer no cost savings compared to the current composition of copper-plated zinc.

So instead of being the grown up in the room and looking to what Canada and other counties have done successfully and doing away with the penny and changing the metal content of other coins as need be, this guy want all steel to help his constituents out.

I guess he has never looked through a pile of rusted and ugly steel pennies.

I'd say go for it, then let’s see how long it takes the copper to evaporate regardless of the melt ban.

[scyther]

I hope if they do change it to steel, it's non-magnetic stainless steel. We'll see more junk in the coinage supply if they can't weed it out with magnets anymore.

Although we might also see more 1943 pennies...

[SilverDragon72]

I should probably stack some more boxes of nickels. It's been a while since I've sorted any.