Talk:Penny (Canadian coin)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is part of the WikiProject Numismatics, which is an attempt to facilitate the categorization and creation of accurate and formal Numismatism-related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate please visit the project page, where you can join and see a list of open tasks to help with.
Start	This article has been rated as start-Class on the quality scale.
Mid	This article has been rated as mid-importance on the importance scale.

if it's 95% steel and nickel, why doesn't it stick to a magnet? Kwantus 14:57, 2005 May 7 (UTC)

last time I checked, copper pennies didn't stick to magnets, steel ones do. Jeff 5:21, 2005 Oct 7 (UTC)

According to the Mint's website, current pennies (2000-) are "94% steel, 1.5% nickel, 4.5% copper plating or copper-plated zinc". The Haxby & Willey guide Coins of Canada, 2003 edition makes no mention of circulation pennies made using steel, just copper-plated zinc. Plus, I can't find any recent pennies that do stick to magnets, leading me to believe that circulation pennies are the zinc ones. Aottley 21:47, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Steel content

My 2000- pennies also don't stick to magnets. Can we please find out the truth and get this fixed while I find my tin-foil hat. --RedACE 02:48, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

After some more googling I found an article [1] which describes which pennies are magnetic. Pennies from 2003-2004 with a (p) under the Queen's head are made of steel and therefore magnetic. I tested with a lot of pennies I had and found one with a (p) under the head -- it was magnetic. Still need to do more research... --RedACE 03:11, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

All of the coins with a (P) under the head are steel plated, most others are not Blacknail 20:47, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Value of metal content

I removed the link to the anti-penny campaign - although a link to some anti-penny campaign might be appropriate, that particular one contains the misleading claim that the metal content of the coin is worth 1.25 cents. Current metal prices are available from [2] (steel) and [3] (copper and nickel); those pages quote US$649 per metric tonne for the most expensive type of steel they quote, and US$3.4689 and US$9.1248 per pound for copper and nickel respectively, which (with the composition and weight given in the article) works out to Can$0.0033 per coin. The removed link was probably basing the calculation on an assumption of pure copper, which would work out to Can$0.018 per coin (it may have been closer to $0.0125 when it was written - copper has been rising). We should be more accurate.129.97.79.144 17:43, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I remember hearing the 1.25c thing on a news report, but they said that it was the cost of producing a penny; the only coin that cost more to produce than it was worth. The report went on to state however that the penny would not disappear, since the Mint took the view that producing the entire run of a year's coinage cost far less than the coins' face value, so there was a "net profit". They also discussed the financial impact of the loss of the penny: calculation of thins such as sales tax would most likely be rounded up to the nearest nickel, stores would lose revenue because any item with a price of $1.99, for example, would either have to lower the price to $1.95 (and lose 4c per item) or raise the price to $2.00 (and lose the psychological effect of having a price of "less than $2"). I wish I could find a reference for it. --SigPig 08:46, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The US penny does cost around 1.25 cents per penny, could that be the confusion? At any rate, the rounding isn't an issue. There's no reason you couldn't still have $1.99 even if there was no actual penny. Rounding isn't an issue until the total, and only if you pay in cash Nik42 08:50, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I need to see the special coins! I'm a collector you know!