my parent's town manufactures the U.S. penny, but like you're highlighting I'd say it's a loss leader or prestige contract because they also have to manufacture the Philipino Peso to remain profitable... I think they do other stuff too...

Hopefully the U.S. will abdicate their responsibility to provide currency exchange in the form of ALL coins... This will allow us to challenge their gross negligence towards monetary policy... For instance, I recently went to a freedom/homesteading conference and met a mother and son who were introducing their service for private money because their husband/father had gone to federal prison for simply paying for something with a metal coin (non-US)... They were guarded in their speech and quite insistent that it was a civil war regulation that was used to steal their loved one's life... Think about it! I can't even give you MY metal coin for YOUR garage sale item without it technically being a felony... and that's determined by long dead people who never knew you or your circumstances would ever exist, but yet here we are today and there are slimy law worshippers that will dig up obsolete, irrelevant and unreasonable statutes, codes and regulations to enslave a man... Law is necromancy!