Passage II

Thinking about Pennies

There's a movement underway to get rid of the penny. Proponents of it's abolition argue that the cost of minting pennies and keeping them in circulation far outstrips their collective worth. The thinking about pennies are a nuisance. What they ask can anyone buy with a penny (or two or three) these days? Not much, right?

[1] It pays to remember, however, that the modern penny has history on its side. [2] It is the descendant of our country's first initial federally authorized coin, the Fugio Cent. [3] This coin, issued in 1787, came complete with free advice. [4] Below this was the admonishment to "mind your business." [5] The word fugio ("I fly" in Latin) was stamped on one side. (21)

Nowadays it may be hard to imagine that a mere penny was ever worth minding (let alone saving), but there was a time when even a piece of a penny was something you could trade. Until the reign of Edward 1 (1272-1307), the back of the British penny was stamped with a cross so that they could easily be cut into halves (a half-penny, pronounced in England as "hay-penny") and are even into fourths (a farthing).

Of course, these days even an entire untouched penny hardly lying on the sidewalk is worth bending over to pick up. Maybe it's because pennies are, everywhere the U.S. Mint report's that it produced 10,257, 400,000 pennies in 1998. That's an average of over 28 million pennies per day!

Oddly enough, though, the fact that there existence is in such huge numbers and are seen as "worthless" is what allows pennies to enrich our lives in a small but priceless way. Consider how rarely any of us arrives at a checkout counter with exact change. Since it is at precisely this moment that the true value of the penny reveals itself. When a clerk dips into that little dish by the register for an extra penny or two, or when a customer replenishes that same dish it allows for the kind of simple act of courtesy found less and less often in modern life. And you still think the penny is worthless?