No, that doesn’t happen, because it is unlawful to scrap US coinage unless and until it has been demonetized. Otherwise it would be profitable to arbitrage the spread between face value and scrap value at the recyclers. The government is widely considered to be profoundly stupid, but they aren’t that stupid.
There are more countries than just the USA. Further there are people who don’t always exactly follow every law every time. One hell of a lot of the old pure silver dimes disappeared forever during the big run-up in silver prices. back in the ~1980s (?)
Considering the precision dimensions needed for a stapler to operate reliably, and the precision fit of the packaging, I suspect that a package of staples contains what it says it does. The fact that you can rarely fit a full stick of staples into an empty stapler is a topic for the Pit…
Well, right, but the silver price first ran up in the late 1950s, exceeding the face value. Thus silver coinage (not just dimes, but quarters, halves and dollars) were demonetized in 1964. That’s why all the silver coins can lawfully be melted and refined into bullion bars. That’s the difference.
I doubt a bank would do this. Why would it? It wouldn’t gain anything from this transaction. Perhaps as a favour to maintain good relations with an existing customer? I don’t think their service-oriented spirit would go that far.
I think they’d order the coins for you, but they would also charge a fee for the service.
You dont want to have that many coins in one place. At least not in Philly.
2 million dimes
I always can. Maybe in the UK we have shorter sticks, or longer staplers.
Some banks do.
Check the OP:
I think you’re right. This How It’s Made video shows that staples are made by first gluing together a bunch of parallel wires into a continuous sheet, and then cuts/folds a whole strip at a time. In this particular case, they get exactly 80 staples per length, though I suspect it works the same for any gauge of staple:
You can buy a million plastic BB’s for $699. Or, $6.99 per 10,000.
Does a book of matches (20 individual matches IIRC) still sell for a penny?
If you buy them in bulk, I found them as low as $2.99 for a box of 50 books. That’s less than a penny per match, but you have to get them in a book of 20 (six cents per book) because that’s the only way you can get a strike strip.
I think that if your staples are the same brand as your stapler (and they’re approximately the same size, so no full-length strips for one of those little mini staplers), they’ll fit in easily, but different brands might have different standard lengths.
Either way, it’s going to be a standard number.
I disagree. The Coinage Act of 1965, stated, among other things, that “United States coins … are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues. …” See 31 U.S. C. § 5103.
The last I heard (I haven’t looked into this lately) the only restriction on melting coins is for one cent pieces (pennies) and five cent pieces (nickels). This is a relatively recent restriction.
Plus I don’t think any American currency has been demonetized, at least not since the Civil War.
The United States is one of only a few (maybe the only one) countries in the world that can make this claim.
Resistors? Is useless!
More seriously, this seems the best answer so far.