why is the penny copper, and all other coins silver?

Answer 1

it goes by how much the metterials are worth. copper is cheep. the silver is gaged on the quality so a nickle may be bigger but there is more silver in dimes.

Answer 2

It used to be that all other coins were minted in real silver in their denominations, but a penny was too low a value to be cut into silver and still be usable as a coin (would have been too small), so they used copper. The U.S. used to be on a metal standard for their coinage.

At one time, the penny was over twice its current size because that's how much copper cost a penny.

Answer 3

The penny is zinc, not copper. Its coated with a very thin copper-colored coating.

All the other coins are neither copper nor silver.

When the coins started out the penny was probably copper worth a penny, and the others were worth their denomination. It would be something related to the gold standard.

Answer 4

The reason pennies are made out of copper goes back to the days when currency was based on the value of metals (gold being the high standard) "haypennies" were one of the lowest values. Today pennies aren't really made out of copper they are made out of a base material (tin or zinc?) and then plated with copper. If you scratch a penny deep enough you will see the silver colored base material inside it. The reason they switched from pure copper to a plated material is due to cost...it actually got to the point where a pure copper penny wasn't worth the cost of making due to the expense of the copper.

Answer 5

actually there is very little if any copper in a penny. its mostly zinc i believe. copper is to expensive to be made into a penny since a penny is worth 1 cent, the amount of copper to make a penny would cost around 5 cents. same thing can be said for silver and other coins. they are most likely silver clad (plated). i hear on the news that ther is a push to abolish the penny since it cost 1.4 cents to make it.

Answer 6

easily pennies are purely copper coated, they have zinc on the interior. And different funds are made from varios metals. Nickels are/ were made from mickle. Quarters replaced into once silver, yet at the prompt are copper contained in the middle and some different metallic on the exterior. decrease back even as the U. S. replaced into on the spectacular, a penny replaced into precisely the quantity of copper that replaced into worth one cent. this implies they replaced the quantity each and every twelve months. now all of them weight a similar. Oh, and funds are diverse sizes and structure so that you'll immediately tell the version between them.

Answer 7

When coins used to be worth their relative metal value ("real money"), a 90% silver penny denomination would have been too small (fall through hole in pocket), thus 95% copper was used up to 1982. Since 1982, the penny is 95% zinc.

In terms of metal value, when factoring labor to do sorting, the USA nickel coin is currently the only coin in circulation that is worth more than it's legal tender fiat face value:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AuVVEsyG4KlKFbahTs9OKYzsy6IX?qid=20060726091228AAheR3M

Since nickels were real money since civil war, it is likely they will be used as real money again, and thus hoarding them now could be very profitable. See the above link for more information.

Answer 8

It used to be coins were basically worth the value of the metal in them. The US used copper for one cent and half cent pieces, (and 2 cent pieces), silver for half dimes, dimes, quarters, half dollars and dollars,(and 3 cent pieces and 20 cent pieces), and gold for dollars, quarter eagles, half eagles, and eagles. The half dime was consider too small for commerce, so a new metal, nickel, was introduced for a five cent piece, (due to a mine owner who had influence over some congressmen). That is historically we had these coins, and when the great depression hit, we discontinued gold coins, when silver increased we stopped putting silver in coins in 1965, and in 1983 we took almost all copper out of the cent.

Answer 9

None of todays coins are silver.

Answer 10

I don't know, but did you know there is about one and one-half cents worth of material in a penny...should buy thousands and millions of them...melt them down, sell the material and make an immediate 50% profit.