Faith Salie offers her 2 cents connected the extremity of the penny
What is worthless, but priceless? Overlooked, but treasured? Ubiquitous, but ephemeral?
What makes america halt successful the thoroughfare to transcend our pridefulness and stoop to prime it up?
It's the humble, shiny, tiny penny.
The Treasury announced it volition cease making caller pennies by aboriginal adjacent year. Will they vanish immediately? No. But similar truthful galore things successful our lives – reliably snowy winters, face-to-face conversations, books whose pages we tin turn – pennies are fading away.
Before you motion maine disconnected arsenic a sentimental fool aged capable to retrieve visiting the penny candy store connected Cape Cod, I bash recognize that pennies are "outdated" and "inefficient." The authorities spends astir 3.7 cents to marque 1 penny. That's a nonaccomplishment of $85 cardinal past twelvemonth alone. And astir fractional of america don't adjacent transportation currency anymore. I don't deliberation the Tooth Fairy believes successful pennies nowadays. So, canceling them makes "cents."
But successful a satellite wherever it seems similar everyone's looking down, a penny tin punctual america things mightiness beryllium looking up ... you know, pennies from heaven?
You cognize who was connected the archetypal penny successful 1792? A woman! It was deemed un-American backmost past to picture a ruler connected a coin, truthful pennies featured Lady Liberty.
A 1793 "flowing hair" penny with Lady Liberty.
U.S. Mint
It wasn't until 1909 that President Lincoln's look graced the coin. His iconic illustration was designed by a Lithuanian-born Jewish immigrant, Victor David Brenner, who created what's thought to beryllium the astir reproduced portion of creation successful history.
1943 pennies were made of zinc-coated steel, due to the fact that copper was needed for World War II.
Should we conscionable propulsion that past away? Well, yes! As agelong arsenic we imbue each flip with our wishes.
"A penny for your thoughts" was coined astir 500 years agone by Sir Thomas More, backmost erstwhile offering idiosyncratic a penny meant their musings were truly worthy something.
These are conscionable my 2 cents, but ... cipher throws a bitcoin into a fountain.
Call maine a numismatic nostalgic, but successful a satellite afloat of crypto and virtuality, I'll support my eyes peeled for the tarnished, tangible, inefficient committedness of luck.
For much info:
Story produced by Liza Monasebian. Editor: Ed Givnish.
See also:
- Face value: Portraits connected money ("Sunday Morning")
- Moneymakers: Artists astatine the U.S. Mint ("Sunday Morning")
- Almanac: "In God We Trust" ("Sunday Morning")
- The past of the penny ("Sunday Morning")
English (US) ·