The Penny
The Penny |
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| Community Created Content - Community Created General | |||||||||
| Written by Ken Caldwell | |||||||||
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When I was a kid, once in a while my buddies and I would jump on our bicycles and ride the two and a half miles to the nearest candy store. All that store sold was candy. It was an amazing place. We learned to spend our hard-earned cash carefully, so when we could get a nice treat for a penny, we jumped at the deal. That candy store had sugar laden wax lips, mustaches, and teeth with scary fangs, all for a penny. They had dozens of other choices for a penny as well. Should I mention the candy bars? We drooled at the giant Paydays, Snickers, Mars, and Almond Joys, all for a nickel. My favorite was the white chocolate covered Zero bar. After making our candy purchase we went next door and grabbed a soft drink (usually a bottled Nehi grape), ripped the cap off on the opener provided at the cooler, and settled down for a few minutes of shear joy. Then we'd climb back on our bikes and head home. Now jump forward 40 years. I don't see kids riding bikes too much anymore. Certainly not two or three miles away from home. It's probably because Moms and Dads are afraid their child we get kidnapped and eaten by a Jeffrey Dahmer type. And you sure can't get anything for a penny anymore. Even the gumball machines are at least a nickel, and most are a dime or quarter. Which brings me to my point about the penny. In doing a little research before I sat down to write this, I discovered that the penny I thought was made of copper, is really 97.5% zinc and only 2.5% copper. The copper is plated over the zinc and the composition has been this way since 1982. Any guesses why it changed from the nearly 100% copper penny introduced by Ben Franklin? It's simple. The blasted thing costs too much to make and administrate. It is said there is somewhere between 140 and 200 Billion (that's with a B) of these little rascals in circulation. I think it's interesting that we don't really know for sure how many are out there. Of course I guess it's because two or three billion are in a basket on my bedroom dresser, or at least it seems that many. And I suppose many of you are also hoarding pennies that you received as change that you never intend to spend. So how do you think the Fed is looking at this dinosaur? Next year, 2009, the penny is being redesigned in four different editions to commemorate the arrival of the "Lincoln Penny", first minted 100 years ago following the "Indian Head" penny. Yes, we are going to spend big bucks paying designers, engravers and personnel at the mints to develop and manufacture some more billions of pennies that we can't really use for much. Can the Congress spell obsolete? Shouldn't we just let the nickel be our minimum currency?
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Last week we picked at the 9/10th of a penny gas pricing, wondering why we continue putting commercial value on a mil (1/10th of a penny). This week, let's jump to the mils big brother; the penny.