By Kathy Hughes
I don’t know where it came from, but earlier this week I found a half-dollar on the floor of my car. Yes, that’s right, a 50-cent piece. It has been a long time since I handled one of those — it must have been part of the change I received from a Thruway toll.
What about all the change we carry around every day? Is there anything you can buy for a penny, a nickel or a dime? Quarters come in handy for vending machines, but only in multiple numbers. There may be something you can buy with one quarter, but I can’t think what it is.
Every now and then the subject of the penny comes up in Congress and at the mint — some individuals want to do away with the penny, which just happens to be my favorite coin. Not the new ones, but before they put the ugly shield on the back, when a penny looked like something.
You’ve probably heard that the trouble with the penny, since it’s made of copper, is that the metal is worth more than it costs to mint it. The government is losing money! One could almost fall for it, until you begin to think about life without pennies — what are pennies good for? Paying sales tax!
No doubt you’ll realize that without the penny, collectors of taxes would be forced — forced, to round purchases up to the nearest nickel or dime. That’s what eliminating the penny would do for us. It’s our loss, but a win-win for the government. Not only will it save by not having to buy all that copper, but they can raise taxes without anyone noticing— that’s the idea anyway.
Now if the nickel becomes the lowest denomination coin, the demand for them will certainly increase, creating the same problem anew: the nickel costs even more to produce than its worth, so let’s move on to dimes, or why have coins at all?
The humble penny has a very old history, and the results of “a penny for your thoughts” may serve up more than expected. Of all our coins, the penny is the oldest — it’s been around since the early middle ages. It was developed by Charlemagne’s father, and the German word is “pfennig.”
Our American penny is unique in that it equals one cent, one-hundredth of a dollar. Thanks to Alexander Hamilton, our monetary system uses decimals. The British also use a penny; only recently, in 1987, once they saw the benefits of the decimal system, Britain made the penny equal one cent. Previously, it equaled 1/480 of a shilling as the English system used multiples of 12.
A few facts about our first and oldest coin: the original was designed by none other than Mr. “A Penny saved is a Penny earned” himself, Benjamin Franklin. The penny is our only copper coin, and the mint made more than nine billion of them last year. Why is there always a shortage of pennies? Because people save and collect them, removing them from circulation. It is estimated that there are over 130 billion pennies in circulation, and if left to circulate, a penny lasts about 25 years.
