Coins are literal cash. Why do Americans treat them like trash?
That's the message from Kevin McColly, CEO of Coinstar, the company behind those coin-cashing machines you see in supermarkets.
American consumers made only 16% of their payments in cash in 2023, according to the Federal Reserve. A 2022 Pew survey found that two-fifths of consumers never use cash at all.
President Trump has ordered the Treasury to stop minting pennies, because their production cost exceeds their value. (Intriguingly, the same is true of nickels.)
Many Americans regard both nickels and pennies as more nuisance than currency. The typical household is sitting on $60 to $90 in neglected coins, enough to fill one or two pint-size beer mugs, according to the Federal Reserve. Americans throw away millions of dollars in coins every year, literally treating them like trash.
United States currency coins used in daily purchases.
Coins are literal money. Why do we treat them like trash?
McColly thinks we should change the way we think about coins.
To state the obvious, coins are worth money. Coinstar converts $3 billion in coins into spendable cash every year, one coin jar at a time. The average jar yields $58 in buying power.
Most of us don't realize how much our coins are worth. Thus, a trip to a coin-exchange kiosk (or a bank, or credit union) can yield a pleasant surprise.
'People underestimate the value of their jar by about half,' McColly said. 'It's a wonderfully pleasurable experience. People have this sensation of found money.'
Certain groups of Americans – lower-income households, and those over 55 – still use plenty of cash, the Fed found, along with people who prefer to shop in person.
A copper 1943 penny is examined closely to check its date on July 18, 1963. The coin has been tested with a magnet and found to be made of copper. If it is authentic, coin collectors say, it may be worth thousands of dollars to its owners, the John Powers of Janette Drive in Goodlettsville, who have put it in a bank for safekeeping. No copper pennies were minted in 1943 according to the U.S. Treasury Department instead a billion steel pennies were minted because copper was urgently needed for war materials during World War II. But many coin-collectors believe that a very few copper discs were run through the 1943 mints by accident.
Coins aren't clutter. They're currency
As for the rest of us, McColly thinks it is time for a paradigm shift. Don't think of your coins as clutter. Think of them as recyclables.
'They're metal,' he said, in case we needed a reminder. 'And they have a long and useful life.'
The Treasury still mints more than 5 billion coins a year, although the figure is dropping, according to the journal CoinNews.
'Those are just natural resources coming out of the Earth,' McColly said: Copper-platted zinc for pennies, copper-nickel alloys for nickels, dimes and quarters.
His point: If Americans got serious about gathering up their idle coins and 'recycling' them into the monetary system, the Mint wouldn't have to make so many new ones.
Granted, McColly has a vested interest. His company collects a small cut of the coins that consumers deposit.
'You can go to your own bank or credit union and not pay any fee,' said Kimberly Palmer, personal finance expert at NerdWallet. Both NerdWallet and Bankrate offer tip sheets on exchanging coins for cash. Most banks will take an account holder's coins for free, Bankrate reports, but not all, and you may need to roll the coins yourself.
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