The American penny has outlived its usefulness.  I think its demise can be directly tied to the end of penny candy.  Nowadays, nothing costs under a nickel, does it?

At our house, we keep a coffee cup near the front door and every time we walk in the door we empty our pockets of those dadgum pennies.  We do this ritual because Joyce says it’s a feng-shui thing.  I don’t know, something about good karma.  Pennies are so worthless that even the little grandkids don’t want the cupful of pennies by the door.  “Aren’t there any dollars in there?”, they ask.

The American penny originated in 1793 and for the first 64 years of its life it was actually 100% copper.  The next seven years it was 89% copper and 11% nickel.  That didn’t last long, as the US mint changed to 95% copper and 5% a combination of tin and zinc.  They made pennies that way until World War II.  It went through another three transformations in the next 20 years.

In 1962, the penny became brass – that’s 95% copper and 5% zinc and titanium.  The biggest change came in 1982, when the penny made its final reform.  It became 97.5% zinc  at the core with 2.5% copper plating.  The mighty penny was no longer mostly copper, but instead a shadow of its former self.  The current cost to make a penny is 1.67 cents.  That’s right, it costs more to make this mostly-zinc penny than its face value.

I propose that we do away with the penny.  If the cost of something ends in 1 cent or two cents, round it down to zero.  If it ends in 3 or 4 cents, round it up to a nickel.  The same for 6 or 7 cents down to a nickel and 8 or 9 cents up to a dime.  It all evens out in the end.  Isn’t that easy?

There is one driving force that is lobbying – successfully, so far – to keep the penny.  No, it’s not retail merchants.  It’s not the US Treasury or the US Mint.  It’s not Congress or the Senate or the White House.  Are you sitting down?

It’s the zinc industry.  Aarrrgh!

- Mountain Man and City Girl

http://www.MountainManandCityGirl.com