Canada penny coin will be gone very soon and less coin for us to collect. On Thursday, Canada budget called for the penny to stop being circulated later this year. It costs 1.5 cents for Royal Canadian Mint to manufacture each penny and its will be a burden to Canada economy because Canadians currently lose money on every new penny produced by the Royal Canadian Mint to the tune of $11 million per year. Canadian businesses and consumers need to round up (or down) to the nearest five cents at the cash register. For Non-cash payments such as checks, credit and debit cards will continue to be settled to the cent.
Canada isn't the first country to stop its pennies production. Australia removed its one cent coins from circulation in 1992, United Kingdom remove the half-penny in 1984 and Israel getting rid of its one-agora coin in 1991. On November 2007, Bank Negara Malaysia announced that 1 sen coin will be discontinued. Other nations that have either ceased to produce or have removed low denomination coins include Brazil, Finland, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. Today, there are 30 billion pennies in circulation.
In Canada, a penny is a coin worth one cent, or 1/100 of a dollar. According to the Royal Canadian Mint, the official national term of the coin is the "one-cent piece", but in practice the term penny or cent is universal. Originally, "penny" referred to a two-cent coin. When the two-cent coin was discontinued, penny took over as the new one-cent coin's name.
Canada Penny Metal composition:
2000–2012: 94% steel, 1.5% nickel, 4.5% copper (as plating)
1997–1999: 98.4% zinc, 1.6% copper plating
1978–1996: 98% copper, 1.75% tin, 0.25% zinc
1942–1977: 98% copper, 0.5% tin, 1.5% zinc
1876–1941: 95.5% copper, 3% tin, 1.5% zinc
1858–1859: 95% copper, 4% tin, 1% zinc
