The Great Penny Cull

So this whole ‘no more Canadian pennies’ thing has me up in arms. Some stores are still giving them out when handing back change, but most aren’t.

Your totalled bill is rounded up or down depending on the denomination - $3.56 is rounded to $3.60, and $4.72 is rounded to $4.70. So sometimes you lose a few pennies, sometimes you gain. But it seems more often than not I am losing, which I find rather....interesting. Where are MY pennies going? BUT I swallowed an evil cackle the other day when, finally, my $4.42 order was rounded down to $4.40! Ha! So there! Two extra pennies for me!

But don’t worry - if paying by debit or charge, its fine. You pay the exact amount and all is right in the world. But when you think about it, you end up paying bank fees for using your debit card (depending on your bank and type of account), so either way you’re losing on out a few pennies.


Not that I'm a miser or anything, but this whole lack of penny thing is really messing me up.

Aside from all the sayings we won’t be able to say any more (‘see a penny, pick it up’....etc), we are losing a bit of history. Pennies have been around for eons. The history, especially for coin collectors, priceless.
For example, what we know as ‘pennies’ are actually called a ‘one cent coin’ because originally, a ‘penny’ was actually two cents. But when the old two-cent coins were cast aside so brazenly as their one cent cousins are being now, the term ‘penny’ took over, and so the one cent coin was named, instead.

Get it?

And then there were half-pennies. Now, can you imagine trying to debit a half-penny? But they had to get rid of those as the country evolved – things like the country adopting the decimal system of coinage in 1858, and provinces slowly joining the Confederation through the years meant denomination of coins minted was always changing.

Before I get too ahead of myself, because a historian and skilled coin-collector I am not, I’ll get back to my thoughts – and yes, please give me a penny for them (even if you think they are silly). I want them – I’m collecting them.

My dad used to work at an airport, a mine for found coins from around the world. He would bring them home and throw them in my piggy bank - an amateur coin collector was born. So not only do I still save coins found in my change from near and far, but I am now saving pennies. Desperately.

Yes, I used to see a coin (penny) and pick it up, adding it to my jar of rainy day funds, but now it all has new meaning.

I’m in a race against time in the penny’s extinction. I want them all. I’m convinced that if I save a roll or two, they might be worth something to someone (grandkids, great-grandkids – whoever), someday. You never know. I found a store the other day that was still doling out pennies as though the crisis wasn’t happening. I gleefully bought a bunch from them and skipped home, which was kinda hard given how weighted down my pockets were. Thank God I didn’t fall in a puddle and drown.

I walk a lot and during my travels, I find a penny here and there. Wet or muddy, they get wiped on my pants and thrown in my pocket. And during this great penny cull, the cause of grief, angst and agony to me, I have noticed a decrease in finding them. And it’s not because I have hoarded all the remaining pennies available. I realize they truly are slowly, slowly, slowly.....fading away.

But last week ‘someone’ up there must have sensed my copper-filled angst and decided to rain pity down on me. Of course it wouldn’t be pennies from heaven - HE is likely a bit short-changed himself.

In three days I found five dimes.

Go figure.