Goodbye Penny

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Today, Monday January 4, 2013 Canada will start phasing out the penny.The Canadian federal government says the time has come to stop making these 1 cent pieces. They take up too much time and space, and they cost too much to make.

I have mixed emotions. Soon the penny will be like a flash bulb, floppy disc, roller skates with keys and cassette tapes...Just a memory.
(I'm dating myself)

I neither liked nor disliked pennies, they never really bothered me, I never collected them, I always spent them. I would count them out to pay for my Timmie's coffee in the drive thru, toss them in boxes for assorted charities and even flip them in to fountains along with a wish. I would always stop to pick one up if I saw it on the ground "find a penny, pick it up and all day long you'll have good luck".

It's the nostalgia I'll miss, a piece of Canadian history disappearing.

In 1967, to celebrate Canada's 100th anniversary as a country, all of the standard circulating coins were issued depicting various animals common to Canada, with a dove design by Alex Covillie used for the one cent. 

Should you go through your penny jar to see if any are Valuable?
The “collectability” of a penny is based on how many of its kind were minted in a year, says Daniel Silverman of the Canadian Coin Association. That means most pennies aren't worth holding on to.

Extremely rare 1936 Canadian 'dot cent' coins are worth at least $100,000. (Heritage Auctions/Canadian Press) But, if you happen to have a rare 1936 “dot cent” —  which you probably don’t, Silverman says. No one has seen any in years. The "dot cent" refers to a dot that appears directly underneath the date.

The last "dot cent" penny to be auctioned off sold for $402,500 US in New York in 2010. Silverman says those pennies, called “the king of Canadian coins,” all sell for upwards of $100,000.

PENNY FACTS:

• The penny cost the Royal Canadian Mint 1.6 cents to make before it was discontinued spring 2012.
  
• About 35 billion pennies have been minted in Canada since 1908.
  
• In 2011, the Royal Canadian Mint produced 600 million pennies.
  
• The composition of the current penny is 94% steel, 1.5% nickel, and 4.5% copper plating or copper-plated zinc.
  
• In 2006, UNICEF stopped collecting money door to door because the coins were too heavy and took too long to count.
  
• Did you know that a four liter mason jar can hold $49.92 in pennies? That adds up to a whopping 4992 pennies that are just sitting on a shelf and out of general circulation. 
  

So while our beloved coin will soon be history, the cent remains the base unit of Canadian currency, so there won’t be rounding when you pay with credit or debit cards, only when paying cash.

I will miss our coppery Canadian coin, I always loved a shiny new penny.

Now I'll make my wishes on nickels, toss nickels in the charity boxes and tell the story "I remember when we used to have the penny, I would put it in my pocket and walk in 4 feet of snow, uphill both ways.....just to buy a gumball"


That's just my 2 cents..