Do not open until 2109: Time capsule for Lincoln's b-day suntimes.com/ Take a look at an interesting article we found.
2010 “Union Shield” Lincoln Cent Launch Ceremony and Coin Exchange coinupdate.com Take a look at an interesting article we found.
Presidents’ Day activities for the kids at the Old State House acorn-online.com Take a look at an interesting article we found.
For the first time since 1900, Valentine’s Day falls on the same day as the Chinese New Year.
February 15, 2010
It didn't start as the Lincoln Cent.
First you had the Large Cent, then the Indian Head Cent.
There's even been a half-cent.
On President's Day, when the emphasis seems to be on shopping, it's fitting to talk about the first president to grace a coin.
Albeit one that doesn't buy too much these days.
Teddy Roosevelt got the coin rolling when he spotted Victor David Brenner's bronze plaque of Lincoln and the idea to feature this image on the U.S. Cent coin was born.
The Mint struck more than 25 million pennies, in honor of Lincoln's 100th birthday, finally releasing the coins on August 2, 1909.
Now, if you collect coins, you know that V.D.B (Brenner's initials) on a certain place makes them valuable; that's a rare 1909 S VDB up there.
(If you notice the V.D.B is on the bottom of the reverse side.)
Reason it's so valuable is that someone high up in the U.S. Mint took exception to the V.D.B. being so prominent and removed it in the early coins.
Only, in 1918, to be restored where it remains to this day.
It can be found at the base of Lincoln's bust, in tiny letters on the portion of the bust that angles downward right near the bottom.
(Get your loupe out.)
The next major event in the Lincoln Cent came in 1942 and 1943, when the U.S. needed all the copper for the war.
So zinc-coated steel cents were struck.
The famous 1955 Doubled Die Penny resulted in the coin die getting two separate impressions hubbed into it, which sparked a new collector’s frenzy.
There have been seven new designs on the reverse (obverse is the face) side since 1952— the 2010 Cent will have a Union Shield.
A lot of people think we should forget new designs, and just junk the longest running coin in U.S. history itself, since it costs more to make than it's worth.
And nobody wants them except collectors.
(We'll figure what to do with the approximately 500 billion of them in circulation later.)
It all probably makes common sense.
Although I do think common cents will prevail, as it always has.
Abraham Lincoln said, “God must love the common man, he made so many of them.”
What better tribute to a most common man, himself, than the most "common" coin?
What's your two cents?
Selected Speeches by Abraham Lincoln .netins.net Take a look at an interesting article we found.
Collecting Most Valuable U.S. Coins forbes.com
Lincoln Memorial Pennies Valued From 1 Cent To $50,000 And Up thefuntimesguide.com Take a look at an interesting article we found.
Gee, I remember those big dark blue albums that folded in on both sides for collecting coins...&n...
Feb. 15, 2010 8:57 AM
Favorite "penny" expression?
6% 29% 19% 26% 6% 13%
The first that comes to mind is "a penny saved is a penny earned". Without pennies to save will we be able to earn them in the future? The value of the penny is directly related to the value of the dollar. A weak dollar allows copper and other metals to appear to rise in value. They are rising more in cost...not value. Much like everything in todays world...cost high, value low. My two cents...
How about, "In For a Penny, In For a Pound" seen on the front of a Hooker's T-Shirt, in SoHo, in 1977 ....... " 'ere naow, what YOU law fin et Dearie ??? Cheeky Bahstid !!! " And she oblivious to the whole thing ....... I laughed even harder, and went for a pint or ten ...
As the old Yiddish quote says, a penny is a lot of money when you don't have a penny. Today, Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes along with memories of my Lincoln Logs. They were sure fun.
TOMMY T- My mother-in-law took my husband's Lincoln Logs away when he was young because he would build w/ them non stop & would cease communication while he was building....
BEBE: Thats called, Singleness of Purpose ....... It is very good for a child to be able to focus that way, as it leads to dilligence, and ultimate success ....... Such were the Builders of this Country, The Signers of the Constitution, The Guarantors of The Bill of Rights, and The Protectors of the People thru and with those Amendments ....... You see, we NEED people like that .......
JALOPKIN- good morning dear sir. (They took away our President's Day holiday to make up missed snow days, but then it iced & snowed last night, so our make-up day is now an off day. Ironic,no.....)
I agree- a man w/ diligence & purpose is one good man, both for his family and for his country. You & my husband fall into that category. May your day be wonderful.
Gee, I remember those big dark blue albums that folded in on both sides for collecting coins... For awhile it was the neighborhood obsession to collect the full gamut of pennies -- and the 1909 S VDB was 'the holy grail' (an impossible dream, like becoming President of the U.S.). Back in those days no one made a big deal about steel pennies from WWII; they routinely showed up in everyone's change.... Our neighborhood 'penny craze' followed a predictable route. We'd go downtown to the local bank (The Somerset Trust Company) with a couple of dollar bills and get 'penny packs' for them. We'd comb through the penny packs taking out what we did not have, replace those pennies with odd pennies at home, and then return to the bank the next day with the repacked penny packs, asking for the cashier to give us dollar bills in exchange. In those days, the clerks had to hand count the pennies to make sure there were 100 to the pack, so this took a bit of time. The inevitable eventually took place (as inevitable things always do): the bank started refusing to take our penny packs back. And shortly thereafter we moved on to other interests (cribbage? Monopoly? Four-leaf clovers? I don't really remember the sequence......). As for the penny collection, I got the itch for an icecream soda at some point and being a 'broke kid' took the pennies and 'cashed out'. My mother was furious when she discovered what I'd done. I knew it wasn't as bad as opening a kid's head with a rock, or abandoning a shoe lost under two feet of mudin the swamps in 'The Fields' or committing any number of mortal sins for which I had to confess at 4:00 p.m. every Saturday to Father Riley -- so I blew it off. Now I regret that ice cream soda.... too late...
more on the honor rollI know the subject is pennies (and Lincoln), but then there were the dimes, which were then silver. I don't remember who came up the the idea of drilling a hole into the middle of the dimes and then reshaping them (blow by blow) into rings. For awhile we made rings out of dimes, but without a marketplace this too passed. We simply couldn't talk kids in our school into giving up their candy and lunch money to buy silver rings, however cool...
Doc,The candy and lunch money--was the plan that you would extract the dimes and make even more rings? And become rich? Kids dream BIG!
You wouldn't give two cents for an opinion as uninformed as mine.....
Weird to think how the value of money has changed over the years. When my grandparents were kids, a couple of pennies would be big money, worth hiding in a safe spot, or even burying as hidden treasure. The counter of penny-candy was a wonderland, worthy of saving up for.
Now, I send my nephew a $5.00 bill for his birthday, and he can barely buy two candy-bars.
Happy Presidents Day, everybody. I'm not sure why that requires a sale on lawn furniture, but I guess it does. My parents are taking me out for lunch today for my birthday. I think I shall have the soup.
Pennies from heaven by Frank Sanatra:
Every time it rains, it rains
Pennies from heaven
Don't you know each cloud contains
Pennies from heaven
You'll find your fortune falling all over the town
Make sure that your umbrella is upside down
Trade them for a package sunshine and flowers
If you want the things you love
You must have showers
So when you hear it thunder dont run under a tree
There'll be pennies from heaven for you and me
Trade ithem for a package of sunshine and flowers
If you want the things you love
You must have showers
So when you hear it thunder
Don't run under a tree
There'll be pennies from heaven for you and me
Pennies from Heaven performed by Frank Sanatra:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-9beLOT128
Anyone remember Danny Kaye in a movie called "Five Pennies"?
Five Pennies lyrics:
This little penny is to wish on
And make your wishes come true
This little penny is to dream on
Dream of all you can do
This little penny is a dancing penny
See how it glitters and it glows
Bright as a whistle
Light as a thistle
Quick, quick as a wink
Up on it's twinkling toes
This little penny is to laugh on
To see that tears never fall
This this little penny
Is the last little penny
Most important of all
For this penny is to love on
And where love is, heaven is there
So with just five pennies, if they're these five pennies
You'll be a millionaire
For this penny is to love on
And where love is, heaven is there
So with just five pennies, if they're these five pennies
You'll be a millionaire
On examination, I think you'll find the initials "V.D.B." on the reverse, at the bottom of the wheat5, where the two stems come together. I believe the mark on the obverse is the mint mark, in this case, "S" for San Francisco. I remember a neighbor nearly killing himself and his family by using a penny as a temporary fuse for his electrical system, back in the days of fuse boxes. It further aggravated a short in the line and caught fire. Fortunately, he contained the fire and put it out before it did too much damage, and lit a few candles instead.
TIG DUPRE:
I concur with you on where the initials are, on the obverse side of the coin. Good catch.
Red Nichols
In 1926 he and Miff Mole began a prodigious stint of recording with a variety of bands, most of them known as "Red Nichols and His Five Pennies."
The 1959 Hollywood film The Five Pennies, the film biography of Red Nichols, starring Danny Kaye as Red Nichols, was very loosely based on Nichols' career. Nichols played his own trumpet parts for the film, but did not appear on screen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Nichols
There are thousands of pennies in those orange glass piggy banks in my bedroom.
Maybe I should crack them open and start looking for my fortune.
Or maybe I should just start working on my taxes.
Finally!
Louis Armstrong & Danny Kaye: THE FIVE PENNIES
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2qETe7PbEA
Urban legends abound with fines and fees paid in pennies...imagine giving up one of those pennies that insures a life of leisure,to make a point to an uninterested minor employee,and he then seeing the magical sparkle,buying his way to a beach where the snow isn't....ah, the stuff of made for TV movies
There is an old urban legend that America and Canada are secretly trying to undermine each other's currency by using pennies. The pennies of both countries are identical in color, weight, diameter, and width. Further, no reasonable person is going to check their change for the illicit coins. Having traveled as far south as Galveston, Texas and as far north as Toronto, Ontario, I have found the little coins of both countries in my change. Now and then, I've come across their similar quarter, but the pennies are far more wide-reaching. As a country in economic turmoil, we must band together to stop this coin-flow from our neighbors to the North!
Back when the Chicago Stock Yards closed and some of the few companies stuck it out ‘till the end moved out of Chicago, my father who was transferred along with the operations came into possession of a 55 gallon stainless steel oil drum that was part of an exhibit in the Chicago Worlds Fair. I believe the expression ‘it musta fallen off the back of a truck' probably best describes that particular transaction.
Though having little intrinsic value, for me it is akin to possessing the Holy Grail ‘cos it was passed on to me from my Dad who began working in the stockyards when he was just fourteen years old and worked for the same company all of his way too short life. The only time he missed a day of work was when he developed an allergic reaction to the penicillin the doctors gave him to treat his pneumonia. In other words, I'm good with the ‘it musta fallen off the back of a truck' thing.
What does this have to do with today's topic?
Well, I forgot to mention that this oil drum had a slot cut into the top (it may have been used to collect tickets or drawing entries at the fair?) that transformed it into a very unique penny bank. Unfortunately I never could hold on to more than a couple of gallons but I guess it's never too late to start again.
There was a time when some vending machines would accept Canandian quarters. That was back when the exchange rate was much more in our favor. Now our two dollar value's are closer than then. As a child I didn't give it much thought, but now I wonder how much money the venders lost in those day's. When I would get any Canadian coin as change from the store I always saw it as a treat, not knowing the value being less. My feeling was I had just hit the jackpot receiving foreign currency...kind of like finding out Santa was a fabrication. Santa is a fabrication...isn't he?
Proofing after posting is not a good idea. Between "jackpot" and "Santa" in the prevoius post it would seem a sentence of thought is missing.I would like to say the missing sentence was a wonderful piece of prose. Sadly, that is not the case...even if I could remember what it was. Feel free to insert wonderful prose of your choice between "jackpot" and "Santa"...
No,Virginia. Santa is not a fabrication...as a matter of fact, he is more of a petrochemical evolution
Back when I was a nefarious kid, I found you could hammer a nickel to the size of a quarter,put it into the coke machine, and get back three more quarters,and a coke....the owner of the bowling alley would have killed me if he ever found out it was me that was single handedly ruining him....
That was three more soon to be quarters...
PETER LAKE:
Here's a question:
How many pennies would that 55 gal. drum hold?
A million dollars worth?
Thanks JP, I'm now going through hundreds of wheat pennies I've been saving for what, now I do know. I don't know about the 55 gallon drum, but it would be fun to take it to the coin dispenser at Shoprite.
It would prolly take as much gasoline as you could buy with all those pennies :-(
PL: Given the cost of copper and the steel in the barrel...it would probably amount to more than what currently resides in Fort Knox.
Korthal: Not proofing before posting again...I see my comment should be for you...sorry...
When I was six or seven (we still lived in 'the old house' back in the woods) I scratched a few scraggly lines on the face of a penny. (I was bored.) Every other weekend we visited 'The Family' (my father's Italian side) in Brooklyn, New York, about 40 miles away. (My mom put her foot down when -- right after they married -- my dad tried to make the visits EVERY week). Anyway, my aunt asked me to go around the 'cawnuh' to buy some bread at 'Red's' Italian bread and pastry shop. After buying the loooonnnnggg Italian loaf right out of the oven, I looked down at my change. And there was the exact same penny with the lines I'd put on it two or three weeks before. Now THAT was incredible!
And of course all of us old codgers remember that (when pennies were still copper) we used to put them on the railroad tracks before a train pulled into the station. Dang, those suckers were FLAT.... and talk about stretched out........
KC:
All is forgiven, I'm sure I've done worse a few times.
Welcome to our world.
RY- he definitely has a petrochemical costume....
There's actually no such thing as a "penny" in U.S. currency. It's a one-cent piece that got the appellation for historical reasons (it's originally from the German pfennig). If you don't believe me, look at the coin. It doesn't say "penny" on there anywhere. Just "one cent".
Incidentally, the dime actually is a formal name, as it says "one dime" on the back, and quarter is short for "quarter dollar", which is its value.
I say we stop minting more of the things. People can keep them in circulation if they want, and they can make them in proof for collectors (as they do with half dollar coins and two dollar notes). Coins last a long time, so simple wear and tear will slowly reduce the stock of Lincoln cents in circulation naturally, and by then people will have learned to deal with not having them.
Doc: Now there are machines that you put a penny and fifty cents or a dollar into and it will flatten the penny into a medallion for you. Less dangerous than a train I suppose but not nearly as fun. Besides, a train wheel can make something different each time. Not the cookie cutter medallions made by the machine.
OOOH,, MSG~it isn't the actual coin, it is the rounding that hides the value of that "CENT", as in that point9 at the back of a fuel purchase,etc...I believe there was a story about the first cash registers, and a company of security agentsthat stood on an elevated platfor in large department stores, and watched to see that the crank handle was turned at every purchase, and that was because patrons wanted their one cent change from the purchases that all ended in $.99.....I think it was Pinkerton's Security that thought that up
That penny machine at the Dells makes 4 different views; put in a penny and a quarter, pick one of the four and turn the big crank handle
I remember a time in England in the late 1940's when we had a coin called a Farthing, it's value equaled ¼ of one English Penny, on my way home from school I found a Farthing in the street, my next stop was the local baker where I purchased two bread rolls with my new found wealth.
Hello Rob, welcome to the"Eye". I'm new here myself and just getting my "sea legs" as it were...hope your experience is as enjoyable as mine has been.
Sir, I thank thee for thine welcome, and may I in return extend my greeting to your good self.
>bad joke alert<...guy found a fifty cent piece in the alley, but didn't have the money....I'm sorry, that was from my nefarious youth,too
In England we had several small value coins apart from the penny, including the threepence or thrupence as it was known also the twopence or tuppence.
Hence the words to the song from Mary Poppins:
Feed the birds, tuppence a bag,
Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag.
`Feed the birds,` that`s what she cries,
While overhead, her birds fill the skies.
MSG, The German pfennig was not in fact the first penny, the name pfennig is the German word for penny, the penny was first used in England in 680, the German pfennig was much later. I believe America "adopted" the word penny for the one cent coin through the Pilgrim Fathers.
RY- That would have been such a romantic Valentine's Day joke... bwaaaa,haa,haa,haa............
RY: "as the fifty cent piece laid there...a dollar bill was blowing down the road"...
Doc Nolan: I found a penny in my yard when I was a kid that had been run over by a train. It hadn't been flattened, though. It had been bent in half (not folded all the way over).
MICHAEL:
Happy birthday!! How was that lunch? Did you have the soup? what kind?
Triston with an 'o' not an 'a' -- interesting spelling. How's Isolde. Just joking, and welcome back.
And msg, I don't have a PARK4 stamped on my forehead but that doesn't mean I'm not a PARK4.
know what I mean?
I think that word pfennig was discontinued because it was impossible to pronounce it trippingly on the tongue, and that just wouldn't do, so someone said, "hey, how about 'penny' instead?" and so it was done.
That's my one cent's worth for today, and now it's back to our regular Olympic programming.
Isolde of course being the Arthurian adulterous lover of Sir Tristan, the spelling Triston is popular is Canada, "inherited" through my Canadian father.
I think it was so named as a homage to one of our own favorite contributors .. .. .. way in advance of course
Triston is a variant, of course. Criston and Wriston are similar names with similar origin, although they are rarely bestowed upon anybody anymore.
It's a rare and interesting name...your father is Triston, too? Very nice.
And...congrats on the gold medal. As a Canuck, I'm sure you thought it was high time...
PARK4: Thank you kind Sir, Actually part Canuck, part Scot, part Brit now part Texan!
Korthal: Skipped the soup, had a roast beef and horseradish roll-up. It was quite tasty. And thank you!
MICHAEL-- Happy birthday!!!! I hope it was a good one. the sandwich sounds very delish....
Michael~is it a natal day,or a celebration that you're a year older,like the Chinese do? Good thing there is that 'no spanking' sign in the sepia bar car
bebe: Thanks
RoadYacht: Real, actual birthday. I am now 32.
Happy Birthday Michael!
I'm sorry I missed it, but belatedly, I hope it was a good day.