The April 24 story, "New quarters feature Apostle Islands," left out an important fact: The composition of the coin is to be 91.67 percent copper and 8.33 percent nickel, according to Google and Wikipedia. Compare that to the Canadian quarter, which is 94 percent steel.
Our U.S. government making our coins from "vital metals," as I've heard some politicians describe them, doesn't make sense.
Also, why is the United States Mint still making a penny? Each penny contains only 2.5 percent copper. But when you make more than 9 billion pennies a year, the amount of copper used is staggering. For those who think we still need to produce the penny, please go online and read the May 18, 2016, Smithsonianmag.com article, "How much does it really cost the planet to make a penny."
I have nothing against mining. In fact, I marched down the streets of Virginia, Minn., in November 1977 to support striking miners, including my father. I drive by an active gold mine (the Cripple Creek and Victor gold mine) one county away from where I live once a week, and it would be devastating to the local economy if for some reason it closed down.
So my point is, basically: let's change the metals we use in our current coins and eliminate the penny before we dig another giant hole in the ground.
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Brent Maki
Security, Colo.
