If the value of a penny is more than a penny ...

... then it stands to reason that they are worth collecting, right?

USA Today - Mcpaper - reports that the cost of minting a one-cent coin is now 1.23 cents, mostly because of the production costs. Each nickel costs 5.73 cents to produce, and the value of the metal is worth more than the coin.

This is the first time in history this has happened, the paper said.

The estimates take into account rising metals prices as well as processing, labor and transportation costs. Based on current metals prices, the value of the metal in a nickel alone is a little more than 5 cents. The metal in a penny, however, is still worth less than a penny.

"Higher zinc, copper and nickel prices are raising the production costs of the nation's coinage," the Mint said in the letter, which it provided to USA TODAY Tuesday.

Naturally the U.S. Mint people are telling us not to melt down the coins in our piggy banks, nor hoard them (really, would we be so foolish as to save money?). Melting doesn't work well anyway, since the coins are a blend of different metals and you'd spend a lot of time trying to separate them out. Or, as Moody's Metals Analyst Michael Helmar said,

"If they were made out of gold, sure," he says.

If they were made out of gold, our country would have the strongest currency on the planet. In fact, if the penny were made out of all copper (and it hasn't been 100% copper since 1837), they'd be almost as collectable as gold coins, and you wouldn't find them beneath the drive-through window!

Strangely enough, the Mint is one of the few outfits in the U.S. government that expects to make a profit each year, as it sells its production "at face value" to the misnamed Federal Reserve System. Even though it is losing money on pennies and nickels right now, it still expects to make nearly $700 million profit this year.

Go figure.