Let us share a remembrance for the humble penny,
For it’s a fact, that early next year, we will cease to mint any.
It costs four cents to make one cent. You know that makes no sense.
Find a penny, save a penny, spend it on Defense.
And it’s not just US Yanks; Aussies, Kiwis, and Canadians, too,
Are dumping theirs, now just the Brits, “spend a penny” in the loo.
Is it “penny wise, pound foolish” or “in for a penny, in for a pound?”
What happens to the luck, of a penny picked up, a lucky penny found?
The penny’s come a cropper. I will miss the copper, penny pincher that I am,
Next in the pickle is the fourteen-cent-nickel, then it’s on to the crypto-klepto scam.

Penny dreadful. – poetry?

I confess to not being Ogden Nash or Oscar Wilde, but I felt a tad nostalgic as I scooped up the change on my dresser this weekend. There is too much of it.
I use cash more than my children. In fact, I use cash more than most people I know. I rarely use my debit card. I don’t have Apple Pay or Venmo. I do use credit cards for big purchases, but rarely for anything under $50.

So, I slap down bills and get coins in change. The change fills a tray on my dresser. Sometimes my wife hands me change I’ve left in my jeans, retrieved before it goes in the washer, or if I’m doing the wash, retrieved from the bottom of the dryer. I never remember to take change with me when I go out, so when the change-tray approaches overflowing, to a CoinStar machine at my local grocery store it’s going.

I’m not alone, I guess. The Federal Reserve estimates that every American household has $60-90 in change at any given time. I don’t think I have that much, thanks to the local CoinStar machine. Before, we used to roll coins, and often had over $100.

Now the penny is gone.

What will we do for change from a finiff for a purchase of $4.99? Will we, as a country, actually get over our obsession with pricing at $X and 99¢. Will we suddenly not price houses at the ridiculous price of $3,999,999. Surely, if you can afford a four million dollar house, you are not fooled into thinking a dollar less is a deal.

I’ve been to some countries where small change was given in candy. I never complained. After all, it has been a long time since penny candy was actually a penny. The same is true with a penny whistle, penny loaves, or Penny Saver magazine (a pre-digital Craigs list).

But I will miss the penny. I can remember when collecting Coke or other soda pop bottles paid a penny each, and five bottles bought a Milky Way, chocolate, caramel and peanuts bar. I collected a lot of bottles, which is probably why I have every kind of dental repair work known to man in my mouth. Oh, still no dentures – yet. Eventually bottles went to two cents, but only long after candy bars went to a dime. Today, the non-“fun-size” bar is between a buck-and a-quarter and two bucks.

When I first moved to Pittsburgh, I met a guy who spent his bottle collecting money on bubble gum baseball cards. Topps gum was five cents and you got five cards, so a penny apiece not counting the gum. He showed me his collection filed in pristine wax paper envelops.
“What kind of kid were you? My baseball cards all ended up attached with a clothes pin to a bicycle fender strut to make motorcycle sounds.”
He explained that his father collected, and so did he, so they were well kept. Holding each card by the edges he showed me a Honus Wagner, his Dad’s, and Mickey Mantle and Roberto Clemente rookie cards in mint condition. These were worth a lot then, but in the millions today. Ben Franklin was right: “a penny saved is a penny earned.”

Collecting bottles was always a way to earn money. My mother taught school in Florida during the Depression. When she got married, her students collected bottles, and gave her two hundred Indian head pennies, in a paperclip box. She held onto it.

My dad collected coins and he kept his eye out for a 1955 double struck penny, or 1944 steel, or a 1943 bronze, but never found them. We sold his coin collection after he died. Billie went through thousands of coins, catalogued and priced them. Most he had gotten in circulation and there were no big money coins. We sold the Indian heads then. I wish we’d hung onto those.

The penny’s been around since 1793. The founders made the decision to move to the decimal system with their money, like the Continental Europeans, and away from the English irregular coin denominations. In fact, the first pennies had 1/100 printed on the back.
There have been Lady Liberty head pennies, Flying Eagles and Indian Heads. The Lincoln Head was first introduced on Lincoln’s hundredth birthday in 1909, and it was the first time we put a president’s head on a coin. There is a 1909 Indian Head, minted in San Francisco in January that year; it’s worth a pretty penny today, but Mom’s students didn’t give her one of those.

Transitioning to a non-penny-culture

I wonder, in years hence, how our language will evolve. Will stroppy pre-teen boys still taunt the police ̶ “What’s a penny made out of? Cheap copper!” ̶  running away laughing at their own cleverness. What will they pitch instead of pitching pennies in the boys lav as a first gambling experience?
Will people still haggle, giving final offers as “not one penny more!” Or “not a penny less.” Will we still describe the less fortunate as penniless? Will my great grandchildren wonder at Louis Armstong singing “Every time it rains, it rains ‘pennies from heaven.’” Will they think Penny Lane is named for a person and not the inexpensive Liverpool retail street of Paul McCartney’s youth? Will they understand the poker reference of penny ante?

Will a n’er-do-well keep turning up like a bad penny? Will a sudden realization still be described as “the penny dropped?” Will people still leave a penny on a veteran’s grave to signify a remembrance visit?

Well, pennies are likely to be around for a while. Yes, the mint is using up the blanks this year and will stop minting early next year. However, pennies will still be legal tender, and there is no plan to recall them, so they’ll remain in circulation until they wear out, or people run out of them. A penny made before 2000 had higher copper content and lasted for 45 years. The copper-coated zinc coins minted since 2000 are expected to have a shorter lifespan, but even those will last longer than I will.

We will ultimately lose our 232 year-old, one hundredth of a dollar coin. Goodbye penny. Penny goodbye. Perhaps I’m not the only one who is a little sad about that.

A penny for your thoughts?