Terry Reedy wrote:
Ralphael1 wrote:
The USPS sells mint stamps at face value by mail.

The face value is far above production cost, and they know most sold to
collectors will never get used anytime soon. It is sort of an alternate
service to the supposed reciept-for-delivery-service use. (Many are
actually printed just to be sold at 40x markup to collectors.)

The US Mint does not sell mint coins at face value by mail.

Production cost is much greater % of face. In fact, I think pennies are
now made at a loss.

With metals prices way, WAY down from their peaks not too long ago, I believe
that all denominations (except possibly for the 5¢) are profitable for the
USMint to produce. As of this typing, the metal cost of Dimes, Quarters and
Half Dollars is now 9.7% of face value, the metal in Nickels is now 52.1% of
'face' (it was nearly twice face value over a year ago), Cents are now only
28.9% of 'face' (it was over 100% of face last year) and the metal cost of
Dollars is only 3.03% of 'face'.

(source - http://www.coinflation.com )

Of course, labor, equipment depreciation, utilities, transportation, etc, will
all add some to those costs of production.

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Michael G. Koerner May they | | | | | | rise again!
Appleton, Wisconsin USA | | | | | |
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