Rochester Coin Shop Owner Weighs In On The End Of Penny Production

As part of his efforts to reduce government spending, President Donald Trump has instructed to stop the production of pennies.

President Donald Trump has instructed the government to stop producing pennies as part of his efforts to reduce government spending.

To learn more about the impacts this halt may bring, KTTC visited Rochester’s Med City Coin and Bullion.

“I’m for it, because I think change is kind of going away anyway,” Owner Mike DeMarino said. “Most people don’t use them. They leave them or they drop them on the ground or don’t even worry about them.”

The only advantage to continuing penny production is for giving back exact change, DeMarino said.

“When it comes to buying, you’re going to have to figure a way out to round it up to the next nickel. That’s the only positive is you can get exact change, but I think with the penny being worth so little that I think it’s going to be easier just to transition into not having it around.”

DeMarino said it costs about three cents to make a penny and with billions of pennies already present, halting the coin’s production will not have a significant impact.

“I don’t know if it really means much for the coin store owners other than maybe people getting the excitement now to start collecting pennies, because when something goes out of stock — not out of style, but out of circulation — anybody wants to grab as many as they can so that might happen,” he said. “As far as me dealing with pennies around here other than the bubble gum machine, it isn’t going to matter to me.”

The reason for this insignificant impact is because the metal used to make these pennies aren’t very valuable, DeMarino said.

“They make a lot of them now. There’s going to be many to use in the next bunch of years to come, but ultimately, there’s no precious metal in the current one-cent coin now anyway. They’re made of zinc covered in copper. I don’t think there’s going to be a high demand.”

DeMarino said one example of a country that stopped using one-cent coins is Canada, which has been out of production since 2012.

“I see both sides,” he said. “Honestly. If it was me, I’d get rid of it.”