1-cent coin’s cost makes penniless U.S. possible

Four decades, $13,000 (and change)
Not Edmond Knowles, of Flomaton, Ala. He hoarded pennies for nearly four decades as a hobby. He ended up with more than 1.3 million of them — 4.5 tons — in several drums in his garage. His bank refused to take them all at once, but he finally found a coin-counting company, Coinstar, that wanted the publicity.

In the biggest known penny cash-in ever, they sent an armored truck last year, loaded his pennies, and then watched helplessly as it sank into the mud in his yard. They needed a tow truck to redeem it. “I still got a few ruts in the yard,” says Knowles.

His years of collecting brought him about $1 a day — $13,084.59 in all.

A penny saved was a penny earned for Knowles, but he took another lesson from the experience, too: “I don’t save pennies anymore. It’s too big a problem getting rid of them.”

Another problem: deciding what to make the penny from. Copper, bronze and zinc have been used, even steel in 1943 when copper was desperately needed for the World War II effort. In 1982, zinc replaced most of the penny’s copper to save money, but rising zinc prices are now bedeviling the penny again.

“I’m very surprised they haven’t gone to plastic,” muses Bill Johnson, a wheat-penny collector who owns the Plimoth Candy Co. (It uses an old spelling of Plymouth.)

Even in his shop where a penny still buys a Tootsie Roll, he leaves a few pennies scattered on top of the cash register for customers like Lindsay Taylor of Westwood, who is buying $1.78 worth of candy.

She is carrying no pennies because her sons have taken them for their old-fashioned piggy banks, which automatically flip coins inside. Her 2-year-old, she says, “just loves pushing the button.”

Others have their own reasons for valuing the humble coin, which borrowed its colloquial name from British currency. The “cent” — meaning 1 percent of a dollar — has been struck every year except 1815, when the United States ran out of British-made penny blanks in the wake of the War of 1812.

“It’s part of the fabric of American culture,” says David Early, a spokesman for the government’s Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.

Redesign in the works
The penny took on the profile of President Lincoln, beloved as the Union’s savior during the Civil War, on the centennial of his birth in 1909. The first ones carried ears of wheat on the tails side, but the Lincoln memorial has replaced those. Four new tails designs with themes from Lincoln’s life are planned for 2009, with a fifth permanent one afterward to summarize his legacy.

This redesign, the first major one since 1959, has heartened penny lovers.

Those who want to keep the penny coin include small merchants who prefer cash transactions, contractors who help supply pennies, and consumer advocates who fear rounding up of purchases.

“We think the penny is important as a hedge to inflation,” says director Mark Weller of Americans for Common Cents. “Any time you have more accurate pricing, consumers benefit.”

Joining with the lobby, the wireless network Virgin Mobile USA recently launched a save-the-penny campaign. Its penny truck will travel cross-country to gather pennies for charity.

Is the nickel next?
Scores of charities esteem the penny, which many Americans donate without a second thought. Like shouts in a playground, pennies can multiply quickly.

“People don’t like carrying them around, so we dump them into the nearest bowl,” says Teddy Gross, who founded the Penny Harvest charity drive in New York City schools. “By the end of any given year, most Americans have got a stash of capital which is practically useless, but it’s within easy reach of a young person.”

Last year, his children raked in 55 million pennies, which had to be redeemed with help from the Brinks security company. They also bagged about 200,000 spare nickels.

By the way, the Mint says nickels are also costing more to produce than they’re worth. Pity the poor nickel?

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