FOIA Request to Federal Reserve 0

[Modwriter]

Thinking about filing a FOIA request to the Federal Reserve. Would like to know how many coins are destroyed annually by denomination. Does anyone know if this has been done? 

https://www.federalreserve.gov/foia/about_foia.htm

[DWLange]

I believe the Treasury keeps track solely of dollar value and not the number or denomination of the coins.

[VKurtB]

Yep, NOT the Federal Reserve.

[Conder101]

3 hours ago, DWLange said:

I believe the Treasury keeps track solely of dollar value and not the number or denomination of the coins.

Yes, and years go that information used to be published in the annual report of the Mint Director.  (Until about 10 or 15 years ago those reported with  a few hundred pages long and had tons of information.  Now they are only about 60 pages and don't say much at all.)

 

The only reference in the Fiscal year 2019 report is on page 13 where it shows that 2.8 million dollars worth of "mutilated & other" coinage was destroyed.

Edited July 22, 2020 by Conder101

[Modwriter]

1 hour ago, Conder101 said:

Yes, and years go that information used to be published in the annual report of the Mint Director.  (Until about 10 or 15 years ago those reported with  a few hundred pages long and had tons of information.  Now they are only about 60 pages and don't say much at all.)

 

The only reference in the Fiscal year 2019 report is on page 13 where it shows that 2.8 million dollars worth of "mutilated & other" coinage was destroyed.

Thanks again Conder. It is a drop in the bucket, but that is good news for coin collectors. IMO

[kbbpll]

Not sure what the goal of your research is, but this article, a bit tangential, has some tidbits. Mutilated coins recovered from scrapping cars, washing machines, vending machines, etc - one company alone, $3.2 million in 2014 and 2015. Article indicates they get paid by the pound in various denominations.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xw4e5j/coin-recycling-damaged-mint-china-fraud

This says they have to be bagged by "denomination category".

https://www.usmint.gov/news/consumer-alerts/mutilated-coin-program

So if they're writing somebody a check, it seems like there must be a record of how many pounds of each "denomination category" they paid out for, but it's not clear to me what the categories are. The program was suspended for a while and it appears to be suspended again. Perhaps you're already aware of all this.

[Modwriter]

Thanks kbbpll. Interesting article about the metal scrapping trade. Researching coin destruction by the Mint now after Conder found their 2019 annual report. If the 2.8 million is an average annual coin destruction amount, the Mint has destroyed 140 million coins over the last 50 years. I'm a numbers guy just trying to put together a coin population report.