EDITORIAL PAGE A penny’s value

Inflation has just about whisked away the penny, if not physically then at least in terms of value. But don’t expect it to disappear quite yet; all of the new and different tax grabs (the goods and services tax, for example) our politicians at all levels feel the urge to legislate mean there will be fewer chances for the consumer to ever pay a round number for a purchase. How many pennies are actually out there jingling in purses or sitting idly in jars on dresser tops is anyone’s guess. What is known is that the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa has pressed on average about 750 million of the brownish-red coins in each of the past five years at current cost, would you believe, of about 1.5 cents per copy! (Copper hasn’t come cheap the past few years.)

According to the Mint, a penny, made from 98% copper (zinc and tin are the other ingredients), weighs 2.5 grams, meaning about 1.8 tonnes of the base metal go into the manufacture of an average year’s total penny output. It is not a lot of copper when you consider that Noranda produces about 220,000 tonnes of the base metal annually. (Two other Canadian coins utilizing copper in their makeup are the 5 cents piece or “nickel,” which is 75% copper and 25% nickel, and thedollar “loonie” coin whose bronzed electroplated coating includes copper.)

Doing away with the penny is the easy way out. Can you imagine our monetary system without a 1 cent piece? Perhaps a better idea is to devise new uses for the coin, to make it feel more wanted. The nation awaits your suggestions.

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