In for a penny

[elmo_iscariot]

Once again, a US Congressman wants to talk about making pennies cheaper. His proposal is to make them from copper-plated steel. If we assume the much more sensible option of abolishing the one-cent piece entirely is off the table--as it almost certainly is*--this is a sensible option. Our northern neighbors have been striking their pennies this

Comments

[theweaselking]

Interesting trivia: The overwhelming majority of all custom coinage worldwide - commemorative quarters, special edition coins, collectable pieces, etc - are made at the Royal Canadian Mint.

[elmo_iscariot]

Neat. Any particular reason, or is the service just offered on particularly attractive terms? I'm under the impression the RCM has a particular reputation for the quality of their strikes, but my numismatic knowledge hasn't been up to date in years.

The US Mint has done quite a bit of circulating coinage for foreign governments, but it sounds like you guys have the commemoratives sewn up.

[theweaselking]

Short version: High quality, and a process that allows new coin designs to be swapped in quickly and cheaply. As I understand it, nobody else *wants* to set up the kind of thing that lets them do this when the Ottawa mint can do it better, cheaper.

They also do a ton of circulation coins for countries that don't want to set up a mint, and produce blanks for countries that want to stamp their own but aren't really set up to make the disks themselves.

[elmo_iscariot]

...and produce blanks for countries that want to stamp their own but aren't really set up to make the disks themselves.

Or can't do it at a given level of quality, I'll bet. I know the RCM made its name in the bullion market based on the extraordinary purity of its gold and silver coins, so it may have unusual expertise in sourcing and working with high quality coin metals.