FIND a PENNY… pick it up – or nah? By [email protected] | on December 12, 2019 By Roger Williams [email protected]
What are pennies worth these days?
It’s a question with two answers.One not as much as they once were — you can’t actually buy anything for a penny anymore, not commonly and maybe not at all, not even hard candy or bubblegum.Two: a great deal more than they used to be worth.
When the U.S.Mint rolled out its first ever pennies on March 1, 1793, 11,000 newly minted coins hit the street — or more accurately, the unpaved road — serving as currency in 13 newly minted states.They were likely worth about 14 cents in today’s dollars, engraved with a woman’s face and streaming hair on one side and a chain with 13 connecting links, to symbolize the 13 United States, on the other.That design was quickly scrapped after some people complained that the chain signified slavery as well as 13 linked states, formerly colonies, historians say.
But scrap heaps, or for that matter the cracks in a couch, the bottom of pants pockets or purses, the supermarket parking lot or the jar of unwanted change, especially those with pennies in them, can become treasure hoards.United States Mint, Philadelphia.Obverse: Head of Liberty with flowing hair facing right, date below.
Reverse: Denomination in wreath, fraction (1/100) below.This design has been traditionally ascribed to a British artist named William Russell Birch.
Patterns with these designs were struck towards the end of 1792.By the time the cent entered formal production, however, its weight and size had been reduced, and another artist was brought in to design the coin.
Four years ago, in 2015, exactly 222 years after the chain penny appeared in 1793, one of them sold at auction in Orlando to an anonymous collector for $2.5 million.
Since the presidency of George Washington, the U.S.Mint has produced about 290 billion pennies with some nine designs, of which roughly 130 billion remain in circulation, according to the American Numismatic Association.With almost 330 million American citizens, that means the per capita ratio of pennies to Americans is about 393 to one.
It doesn’t make them particularly appealing to some users of the coin, these days.But others still swear by them.
“I tried to eat one when I was a kid, and swallowed it without choking, or better, dying,” says Beth Preddy, a Neopolitan marketing expert.
“I hate them,” says Gloria Jordan, owner and chef of the celebrated Café Napoli in Fort Myers.SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE
“It is what it is,” says Dollar Store manager John, who asked not to be identified by his last name, in Lee County.
“Most people are too impatient to collect them, but I started as a child,” says George Hornberger, 63, co-owner with his wife, Eleanor Hornberger, of South Florida Coins & Jewelry in Lake Worth.
Mr.Hornberger has bought and sold pennies that have increased in value, sometimes dramatically, from almost every era and year since 1793, he says.Collecting them can pay off.
“If you had a good collection of wheat pennies, for example, you could have something worth real money,” he notes — from hundreds or thousands of dollars on up.And it shouldn’t be that hard to do, especially for baby boomers who might inherit some coins from parents who kept some from their childhoods.
The wheat penny, so called because two stems of wheat frame an all caps “ONE CENT” on the back, with the Latin inscription “e pluribus unum” above and a “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” below, was produced between 1909, the first year Abraham Lincoln also appeared on the front of the pennies, and 1958, when the design changed.In the KNOW
Although the coin was made of copper in most years, during World War II steel versions appeared since virtually all copper went to the war effort.
The steel coins have become exceptionally valuable.
“All wheat pennies are worth more than their face value of 1 cent,” according to cointracker.com , where you can learn both the value and the peculiarities of each year’s wheat pennies.And they still turn up regularly in circulation.
“A good rule of thumb is that they are worth at least 3 or 4 cents even in poor condition, those in good condition (not including special years) are worth at least double digit dollars, $10 or more when purchased or sold in MS-63 condition (mostly uncirculated, with fewer deficiencies).Finding a circulated coin in MS-63 is a long shot.You may get lucky and find your Grandma’s stash, or maybe pick one up from a bank teller that just got dumped off during the holidays, however.So keep your eyes open.” 1858 1C Flying Eagle Cent.
The opinions of many suggest pennies are simply place holders in the culture of currency — collecting here and there like odd little extras that make a confusing bottom line come out right, turning up at cash registers just in time to slow the long, waiting lines of shoppers or diners down to a crawl.
That’s in part because there are so many of them, poured like seeming sand into American circulation.In February last year, for example, the U.S.Mint struck more than a billion coins, 640 million of them bright shiny “copper” pennies, government numbers show.
“The Federal Reserve always orders more one-cent coins than any other denomination even as it costs the U.S.
Mint 1.82 cents to make and distribute each one,” according to coinnews.com — in that month more than 60 percent of the 1.07 billion coins struck were pennies, a typical ratio and a number about average for a given month.1943 1C Lincoln Cent (wheat, zinc-coated steel)
“The fact that it costs more to produce them than they’re worth, and yet we’re still doing so, is to me yet another piece of evidence that we should put a greater limit on what we trust government to do for us,” says Dean Stansel, a senior research fellow in economics at Southern Methodist University and formerly an economics professor at Florida Gulf Coast University.
For one thing, the pennies aren’t really copper, Since 1982, they’ve been almost 98 percent zinc, with a little copper thrown in for good looks and tradition.With production and distribution costs, government figures show a loss of roughly $50 million each year from making the pretty penny.
Some people, however, may be far too dismissive of the little coins.Polls suggest that a slight majority of Americans are traditionalists who just like seeing pennies around — so they’re against getting rid of them.
And more than 70 percent are likely to pick them up if they see them — especially if they’re lying heads up, said to be good luck.
Near Christmas last year, Shane Anthony Mele of Riviera Beach stole $33,000 worth of rare coins (they weren’t heads-up pennies, which may suggest why his luck soon ran out) from a friend in North Palm Beach, and — not knowing what he had — dumped them in a green-and-white Coinstar machine, standard across Florida and the United States, news reports indicate.For his efforts, that Florida Man walked away with a cool $29.30 and eventually a jail sentence.
Mr.Hornberger and other rare coin dealers became part of the investigation that finally led to the arrest of Mele, he recalls.
And Coinstar, once again, became the go-to place for coins somebody no longer wants.
In 2015, a company spokesperson told Smithsonian Magazine the company had deposited 18.5 billion pennies with banks in that year alone.
At 145 pennies per pound, that’s about 62,000 tons of coin, a transport challenge at the very least.
And in April this year, not long after Mr.Mele’s thieving debacle, the American Numismatic Association sponsored The Great American Coin Hunt to engender collector interest in pennies and Indian-head nickels, which they called, “the biggest coin drop in American history.”
Mr.Hornberger at South Florida Rare Coins joined other shops such as Wheat Cents in Sarasota and Antiquity Coin & Co.in Fort Myers by taking many rolls of coins and distributing them on the street to restaurants, supermarkets, in parking lots or gas stations, among others.
Some people, meanwhile, have figured out other ways to make money rather than discovering old coins — and good money at roughly 50 times the value of a penny, for each penny.
They use the now widely popular Penny Collector machines at often illustrious tourist destinations such as the Edison-Ford Winter Estates on the Caloosahatchee River in Fort Myers — the former homes of friends and neighbors Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, who might have admired the ingenuity of money-making from a mere penny.
Visitors who put two quarters in the machine, plus a penny of their choice, can walk away with a stretched copper artifact newly engraved with one of several available images — say the faces of Thomas Edison or Henry Ford.
Lisa Wilson, spokeswoman for the Edison-Ford Winter Estates, says the machine is popular, especially with children.
“A year or so ago, a family visited and made a souvenir penny,” she recalls.“On the way home, the little boy lost it.
The family reached out to us, and one of our staff members made him a new penny and sent it to him.They were very thankful and posted it on Facebook.”
In which case, the good people at Edison-Ford reaffirmed, perhaps, an old C.Mashburn notion about pennies, stretched and changed, or not: “Don’t pass that penny by when you’re feeling blue.It may be a penny from heaven that an angel’s tossed to you!” ¦ People and their pennies
Gloria Jordan, owner and chef at Café Napoli:
“I hate pennies! The penny has become more of a nuisance than practical anymore.I’m always leaving them at the stores or anywhere, when I’m receiving change.I used to save them, but now banks do not even want them.
If you try to change them in you now have to pay fees in most cases.In short, they have no use any longer, as I see it.
“Also, they slow down the process of checkout for a table, at restaurants, even when customers don’t care about the pennies.(But) many want and expect the right change.”
Beth Preddy, a Neapolitan marketing expert:
“As a kid, I wrote letters to my crushes, grandparents and others and taped pennies to the paper as a gift to the recipient.It was a sign of my esteem.
Pennies were valuable when I was a kid.”
Evelyn Cannata, founder and president of Etiquette By Evelyn:
“When you find a penny on the ground it’s called ‘an angel penny,’ or a ‘penny from heaven,’ because it signifies that someone from the other side is missing you and wants to communicate with you.When I was young, I swallowed a penny.
Pennies get a lot of abuse because they hang around in the bottom of pockets and purses and get dirty.”
Andrew Howard, guitar player:
“I’ve picked a guitar with every coin, including pennies, but I’m not really a fan of the metal on metal sound.But I believe Billy Gibbons from ZZ TOP uses a peso.
“When I see pennies I pick them up, sometimes, whether they’re heads or tails.But I usually give all the small change to McDonald House or others.”
John, manager of a Dollar Store:
“We have some pennies to help people at the cash register round-off the price — the (numbers) always seem to end on a few pennies.I thought the dollar coins would take off, but they never did.So pennies? It is what it is.”
Philip Christie, retired food vendor:
“Save pennies every day, put them in your piggy bank at the end of every day.No matter what they say, a hundred pennies is still a buck.
“They have uses.
Roll of pennies in a leather glove — I was born in the city (Boston).
“Does getting rid of the penny make cents?
“Always fun as a kid to put pennies on the train tracks and pick them up after the train went by, with friends, carefully.”
Dean Stansel, senior research fellow in economics at Southern Methodist University and formerly an economics professor at Florida Gulf Coast University:
“I hardly ever use cash anymore, especially not pennies.The fact that it costs more to produce them than they’re worth, yet we’re still doing so, is to me yet another piece of evidence that we should put a greater limit on what we trust government to do for us.The incentives for government to avoid such money losing activities are very weak compared to those in the private sector.As we’re seeing with crypto-currencies, the private sector is fully capable of producing currency.” COURTESY PHOTOS
George Hornberger &, Eleanor Hornberger, South Florida Coins & Jewelry in Lake Worth:
“Collecting pennies is an inexpensive hobby, and there are some extremely rare (pennies) worth a great deal.
I’ve bought almost everything from the 1790s on.The only thing I’ve never bought is the 1943 copper.
“During the war they needed copper, and they made them out of steel.But a couple of 1943s weren’t steel.
“It corrodes easily, but it’s the holy grail of the wheat penny.You see counterfeits, a lot of people have one, but they stick to a magnet.If it doesn’t stick to a magnet, it’s a possibility.
“There is always something going on, even in the ’70s — an error or mistake on pennies.Those are worth money.” The rare 1955 Double Die Lincoln.
If you find one in your pocket, you’ll likely be thousands of dollars richer.SOUTH FLORIDA COINS & JEWELRY COURTESY PHOTO.