The E-Sylum:  Volume 10, Number 24, June 17, 2007, Article 33

THE COST OF MAKING COINS: COINFLATION.COM

Speaking of cents, Dick Johnson adds: "There is a contest in Washington
DC for the funniest federal employee. Here is one entry. At the U.S.
Treasury where it costs a cent and a half to make a cent one employee
said: 'I work for a nonprofit organization, the U.S. Mint.'"

To read the news article, see: Full Story

Actually, the price of precious metals used in coins has been coming
down, if only a bit.

In his Friday blog Dave Harper of Numismatic News wrote: "It was just
weeks ago when the prices of copper and nickel combined to make it
appear that the metallic value of America's five-cent piece would
soon hit 10 cents, or double its face value.

"Then a funny thing happened. The prices of the two metals, which
are in heavy demand in China, declined, taking the metallic value
of the coin to 8.4 cents.

"This halt could be temporary. Copper and nickel both jumped yesterday.
I make it a point to check a Web site that recalculates the metallic
values of coins on a daily basis to keep track of things. It is
called COINflation.com. Take a look at it at
coinflation.com

To read Dave Harper's original blog entry, see:
Full Story

Martin Purdy forwarded a related newspaper article on the 1970s
U.S. coin shortage.  He writes: "As a Brit I can't help a slight
smile whenever I see people being encouraged to "spend pennies" ..."

To read the complete article, see: Full Story

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization 
promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor 
at this address: whomren@coinlibrary.com

To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum