The U.S. Mint, Washington, suspended its mutilated coin redemption program this May. The U.S. Mint receives large bundles of coins thathave been mutilated or damaged in the recycling process of used cars, vending machines, laundry machines and other sources. The program has beenoperated by U.S. Mint for many decades.

Several years ago, the U.S. Mint suspended this program while pursuing litigation. Scrap recyclers had to store these recovered unusable coinsduring that period. The U.S. Mint had previously resumed operation of the mutilated coin redemption program in January 2018 as it released newguidelines and certifications for submissions.

Some of the new guidelines include the establishment of procedures for certifying participants based on submission amounts and frequency, samplingsubmissions to authenticate material, conducting site visits for certain participants and requiring information about how the submissions came to bebent or partial. The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), Washington, reports that this was considered a major victory for the recyclingindustry, which had been stockpiling mutilated coins during the moratorium.

As recycling technology has advanced the ability to accumulate coins in significant quantities has grown quickly, ISRI reports that this is anintegral part of many recycling companies' operations and product lines. According to an ISRI news release, the association is reaching out to theU.S. Mint to determine why the program was suspended. ISRI hopes to see the program resume operations as soon as possible.

To read the complete article, see:
US Mint suspends mutilated coin redemptionprogram (https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/us-mint-suspends-mutilated-coin-redemption-program-again/)

To read Coin World's coverage, see: https://www.coinworld.com/news/us-coins/2019/05/us-mint-suspends-mutilated-coin-redemption-program.html

To read earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
RECYCLERS DEFRAUD U.S. MINT WITH CHINESE COUNTERFEIT COINS(https://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v18n13a13.html)
CHINESE COIN RECYCLER HOLDS OPEN HOUSE(https://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v19n15a24.html)
WSJ EXAMINES DAMAGED AND SCRAP COIN RESALE PROGRAM(https://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v19n19a23.html)
U.S. MINT RESUMES MUTILATED COIN PROGRAM(https://www.coinbooks.org/v21/esylum_v21n05a32.html)