US Mutilated Coin Program

Sustainability remains a topic of interest for the cash industry, both coins and banknotes. Government mints were early adopters of sustainability and have offered for many years programs where the public or businesses could redeem damaged or mutilated coins.

In October 2022 at The Coin Conference in Amsterdam, my presentation on mutilated coin focused on the United States program, although the issue of mutilated coins and how to best recycle coin alloys is one faced by all government mints. For those not in attendance at the Coin Conference, the following is a summary of that presentation.

The US government established the Mutilated Coin Program in 1911 to serve the public and businesses for the redemption of small amounts of damaged coin. For over 100 years, the program rolled along until it was overwhelmed by the redemption of suspected counterfeits from bad actors, leading to the US Mint suspending the program in November 2015. A refresh of the mutilated coin program resumed in January 2018, but once again the US suspended it in July 2019, and the program is still idle at this time.