Penny Pity Party

[Karoht]

Objective: A Farewell Party to the Penny in Canada
Location: In Calgary, Casino in question to be determined. Other cities to copy as needed.
Timing: To be determined.
Plan:
As some of you know, the plan is to phase out the penny here in canada. So we plan on sending it out in style. Sadly, no explosions.
Each person spends $25 and goes and purchases a box of pennies, in addition to emptying out their piggy banks for pennies.
We go to a casino and play penny slot machines all night!
The perks-Casino's give free food and booze to anyone gambling. Some Casino's also have bowling alley's and decent arcades.

This is not an advertisement to gamble, it is a plan to have a party, say goodbye to our pretty copper pieces and have some decent food and good company at the same time.

[Grinner]

You all are getting rid of Canadian pennies? No! How will I ever accidentally receive foreign currency now?!

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Man, I'm HAPPY that the penny's going, I've never ever used a penny in my entire life. Never.

[Karoht]

I'm glad to see it go, don't get me wrong, but I want to still give the penny a proper send off. And I'll likely never set foot in a Casino otherwise, and it wouldn't really be trolling to dump all my pennies there whereas it could be kind of annoying to take them all to the bank.

So fun factor is likely to be high, annoyance factor is likely to be low.

[thubby]

if canada's penny is anything like the american one, save them until they're phased out, then melt them down.

[PersonMan]

if canada's penny is anything like the american one, save them until they're phased out, then melt them down.

Or save them until they're really, really phased out and sell them for more than their mineral worth to collectors. Works better with older or rare ones, though.

Or just make them family heirlooms in a box to be opened in 100 years. By then they should be rare enough.

[Maryring]

Save some for the numismatics amongst us.

[Karoht]

Or save them until they're really, really phased out and sell them for more than their mineral worth to collectors. Works better with older or rare ones, though.

Or just make them family heirlooms in a box to be opened in 100 years. By then they should be rare enough.I had a conversation with a few collectors. They aren't expecting any kind of noticable uptick in valuation for a considerable while. 1-Pennies are really common, so lots of people have the opportunity to horde them. 2-Pennies are not exactly well liked, so demand is pretty low.

Me? I can't be bothered to keep a box of them.
I'd much rather have a good time and a good story to share. Much more valuable to me.
And hey, possibly free food and booze!

[thubby]

Or save them until they're really, really phased out and sell them for more than their mineral worth to collectors. Works better with older or rare ones, though.

Or just make them family heirlooms in a box to be opened in 100 years. By then they should be rare enough.

well, yes. i am actually doing something like that. it's a tiny box in my basement with things for my descendents. it's small so it should survive the ages.

but that isn't going to help anyone alive today. the only thing keeping anyone from melting them (and nickels) down is that they made it illegal. once they stop being currency, that silly law no longer applies.

[Togath]

Not to insult anyone, but, isn't a currency with a value of 1 or 1/2 necessary for an economy?, Why would Canada want to phase out pennies?, I did notice some mention of a 2 penny in this thread, so do you mean their getting rid of just the pennies with a value of 2 up there?
Now that I think about it, how would you even give exact change without a penny?

[Karoht]

Not to insult anyone, but, isn't a currency with a value of 1 or 1/2 necessary for an economy?, Why would Canada want to phase out pennies?, I did notice some mention of a 2 penny in this thread, so do you mean their getting rid of just the pennies with a value of 2 up there?
Now that I think about it, how would you even give exact change without a penny?
You don't. You round up. Your maximum loss/gain is 4 cents, hardly breaking the bank.
It costs money to keep money in circulation. Pennies take up a lot of space, they weigh quite a bit when you have many of them together, and the time wasted in tracking a penny is pretty crazy. That and people really don't like having to handle pennies. For the most part people just throw them on the ground, which is actually quite harmful.

Or, we ditch the penny, and don't have to deal with the problems at all.

Australia did it, with next to no issues. Other nations are phasing out the penny as well. Not to start another topic but physical currency is fast becoming obsolete, this is just one step of the phase out.


EDIT:
You mean decendants there Thubby. Ancestors are the people who came before you, not after you.

[thubby]

the 1/2 penny was phased out ages ago for the same reasons they're getting rid of the penny now.
just like how anything below a cent is dropped now, amounts below 5 can be dropped too. a few countries have already done this and nothing ill came of it.

[SaintRidley]

if canada's penny is anything like the american one, save them until they're phased out, then melt them down.

The American one cent coin hasn't been made of copper for thirty years. 1982-present coins are copper-plated zinc.

For the Canadian cent, they were primarily (98%) copper until 1996, after which they changed to similar composition to the modern American cent from 1997-99, and to a largely steel-based coin from 2000-12.

Regardless, you would need a ridiculous amount of pennies made of copper to actually make anything by melting them down.


Not to insult anyone, but, isn't a currency with a value of 1 or 1/2 necessary for an economy?, Why would Canada want to phase out pennies?, I did notice some mention of a 2 penny in this thread, so do you mean their getting rid of just the pennies with a value of 2 up there?
Now that I think about it, how would you even give exact change without a penny?

As mentioned, it's been done. Many currencies have cut out their traditional subdivisions entirely - sen no longer exist in Japan and everything is in yen.

The American and British halfpennies were taken out of circulation for the same reason - inflation rendered them completely irrelevant. Indeed, the British largely held on to theirs after decimalisation because it eased the transition rather than any actual merit to the denomination.

Canada does not have a 2 cent coin. Their coin denominations, barring the $2 coin, are the same as the U.S. denominations.



Also, the penny isn't entirely dead in Canada. They won't make any more in the future and they will slowly be phased out of circulation, but there are two things to go along with that. First, pennies in America and Canada barely circulate. They wind up in change jars until they're full and brought to banks and never actually get spent. Second, the Canadian penny will still remain legal tender in Canada. You will not be able to legally melt them down the moment 2013 rolls around because of this (http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/03/29/federalbudget-flaherty-penny-cent.html):


[O]ne-cent coins will always be accepted in cash transactions for as long as people still hold on to them.


The U.S. should really get around to doing this with the $1 bill and the penny.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

You don't. You round up. Your maximum loss/gain is 4 cents, hardly breaking the bank.


No, you round up or down to the nearest '5'. The NET loss/gain is 0. Of course, this would only apply in situations involving cash: more and more transactions are being made with cards where people used to use cash.

[Kobold-Bard]

Why would you get rid of pennies? I really don't get it :smallconfused:

[thubby]

No, you round up or down to the nearest '5'. The NET loss/gain is 0. Of course, this would only apply in situations involving cash: more and more transactions are being made with cards where people used to use cash.

well, technically someone loses 1 cent over some period. standard 4down 5up rounding schemes technically favors rounding up.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Why would you get rid of pennies? I really don't get it :smallconfused:

Because nobody uses them.
Because of inflation, they are such a small denomination that they're just not useful. People collect them as change, and then they just keep them in jars in their house, MAYBE bring them to the bank to exchange them, but more often just ignore them.

Edit: ? If it's an '8' '9' '0 '1' or '2' it counts as a '0'. If it's a '3' '4' '5' '6' '7' it counts as a '5'.
And this is after tax.

[Starwulf]

The U.S. should really get around to doing this with the $1 bill and the penny.

I understand getting rid of the penny, but the $1 bill? Why should they get rid of that? I use singles all the time, for many, many different purposes. If the lowest circulated bill is a 5, that would remove more then a few options, especially for soda machines and what not.

Unless of course you're voting we switch to a dollar coin like Canada's loony and toony(or is it looney and tooney?), in which case I'd be all for that. Love those little coins, still have one of each from a trip up there several years ago. I'd be fine with switching to dollar coins.

[SaintRidley]

Why would you get rid of pennies? I really don't get it :smallconfused:

They cost more to make than they are worth face value.

So does the U.S. nickel.


I understand getting rid of the penny, but the $1 bill? Why should they get rid of that? I use singles all the time, for many, many different purposes. If the lowest circulated bill is a 5, that would remove more then a few options, especially for soda machines and what not.

Unless of course you're voting we switch to a dollar coin like Canada's loony and toony(or is it looney and tooney?), in which case I'd be all for that. Love those little coins, still have one of each from a trip up there several years ago. I'd be fine with switching to dollar coins.


Pretty much. The $1 bill has a few things going against it. Average life is about 13 months before a bill is used enough that when a bank gets hold of it it has to be sent back to the fed to be destroyed. Coins, obviously, last quite a bit longer than that.

While it only costs between 4 and 9 cents (http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/02/02/why-the-u-s-should-get-rid-of-the-1-bill/) to print a dollar bill (depending on cotton prices) and it costs 18 cents (see my last link, below) to mint a dollar coin, that extra cost is negated by the substantially longer lifespan of the coin.


The U.S. Mint has not updated the figures on their website since the 2004 annual report, unfortunately, so their page still list some old costs which show the penny and nickel to be running just under their face value. (http://www.usmint.gov/faqs/circulating_coins/index.cfm?flash=yes&action=faq_circulating_coin)

Fortunately, The 2011 annual report is available online. See page 11, "UNIT COST OF PRODUCING AND DISTRIBUTING COINS BY DENOMINATION" (http://www.usmint.gov/downloads/about/annual_report/2011AnnualReport.pdf) - the penny and nickel currently cost 2.41 and 11.6 cents per unit to mint, respectively.

Edit - you might notice that the half-dollar secions in that table are left blank. This is because the U.S. mint last struck half-dollars for circulation in 2001. Half-dollars struck from 2002 onward have only been struck for annual sets for collectors.

[thubby]

what about transport and handling? coins are heavier and take up more space.
one of the reasons vending machines dont take pennies is because they're too expensive to transport.


that, and i already dislike change even when it isn't worthless. there's something to be said for convenience.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

what about transport and handling? coins are heavier and take up more space.
one of the reasons vending machines dont take pennies is because they're too expensive to transport.


that, and i already dislike change even when it isn't worthless. there's something to be said for convenience.

Unless I'm very much mistaken, our 1 dollar coins are a lot cheaper in total than your 1 dollar bills, because they last that much longer, which means that fewer need to be printed or pressed.

[ForzaFiori]

I wish the US would get rid of the penny at the very least. I like bills more than coins though, so keeping the dollar would be cool with me. Though I think we should switch over to some of the stronger materials for bills like some other countries are doing. (can't remember which countries it is, but they're putting plastic or something in their bills so they last longer)

[Jimorian]

I turned in just over $25 worth of U.S. pennies to one of those coin exchange machines a couple months back. I try to use them whenever I can, but they still collect like crazy in my coin bowl.

Also, this thread reminds me of one of my favorite words: seigniorage (hah! Firefox's spellchecker doesn't even know it!). :smallcool:

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Canada's switching over to polyester bills, which include see-through bits. The 50 and the 100 are already in circulation. The 20 was just revealed a week ago.

We're doing a LOT of monetary reform.

[Traab]

I honestly wonder how much longer it will be until real money is phased out and everything is on a swipe card of some sort. I still remember the good old days about 12 years ago or so when you had to carry both because not every store accepted cards, and not every card accepting store would take YOUR card. Now it seems to confuse cashiers from time to time when you pull out some actual cash. "What? What the heck is this green stuff? Why isnt the scanner reading it? Im confused. Is it like a check?"

[thubby]

i doubt they'll ever do away with physical money.
credit cards require resources be spent to track the account and resources=money.

[Karoht]

Without getting too far off topic, sooner or later people will not see a reason to have a physical representation of the number, when digital tracking of that number offers more incentives and fewer drawbacks than physical currency.
That, and it's all fiat currency anyway, but that gets into a whole discussion that I think the board rules prohibit.


So, back to the party. Yaaay, party.
As soon as I get more info, I'll set up a date and a location in calgary. It would be super cool if we could get something like this going in each major city in canada, or even just any place with a penny slot machine on a coordinated date.

Can anyone suggest some other activities we should do at the party? Funny party games that can involve pennies?

[Yora]

"Sooner or later" can be a lot of time, given that coins have been arround for 26 centuries.

Hard cash is good to mask paper trails. Drugs, weapons, bribes, they all need to be done in cash and then converted back in casinos. Or converting your money into goods that are much more expensive than they look, to make your wealth appear smaller and having to pay less taxes.
You can't really do large scale crime with bank accounts and credit cards.

And there's always the issue of reliablity. A store can't just shut down all opperation because the modem broke or there's a server crash, or something like that. I had it happen that I am at the grocery store and the register didn't accept my card. So I got out some bills and no problem at all.

Funny note: In Germany, of the 12 billion DM worth of coins in circulation in 2000, more than 50% have still not been converted to Euro and destroyed by the Federal Bank, more than 10 years after they stopped being legal tender. Of the bills, there are only 2,5% worth of DM not yet returned.
You can return and convert them later on indefinately, but it's still weird. But I suspect that many people wanted to keep one coin of every type, which includes the 5 DM coin, which is worth more than one of all the other coins combined. For the small 0.01, 0.02, 0.05, 0.10 and 0.50 coins, the return rate is probably way higher than 50%.
The Federal Bank takes all money and pays out the Euros in cash, no questions asked, but the amounts are usually only 10 to 25 Euro, so it's probably mostly piggybanks discovered collecting dust high up on some shelves. But rumor has always been that the really big notes like 1000 and 500 were almost all outside the country, either used by organized crime, or by immigrant workers who wanted to support their families back home but had no trust in their local banks, so they wanted cash that would be less likely to suffer from inflation.

Still, I would not expect the Bank of Canada to have all the pennies back soon. :smallbiggrin:


Can anyone suggest some other activities we should do at the party? Funny party games that can involve pennies?
Play poker like there is no tomorrow. It's a fun game if nobody can lose more than a six packs worth, but you can still shove around big piles of coins. :smallbiggrin: