Poor British Pennies!
There are currently 11 billion one penny coins in circulation.
That's approximately 169 or £1.69 worth of penny coins per person.
And fun facts: 60% of them are only used once, 8% of them are thrown away!
My penny stash!
This year the UK Treasury has placed no new orders for penny coins, which is the first time since it began minting them SINCE 1968.
They've been around a while, they first entered circulation in 1971 and have become a much loved part of British culture: think penny arcades, piggy banks, and penny sweets.
Although reflecting on those three things does feel a little nostalgic, or maybe that's a euphemism for dusty, dirty and completely unnecessary!
I mean there's something pretty grim{sby) about Penny Arcades IMO, not the kind of place I'd choose to hang out in, maybe I'd take my kids there to entertain them for a few hours for very cheap, but that's about the advantage, all that noise. And no chance of winning anything decent, just cheap shit.
Will pennies be phased out...?
The reason we've stopped printing them is simply because there are too many of them. We are using cash much less for payments, so this is just part of the move to more people using cards and apps to pay.
Cash was only used for 12% of payments last year!
However there is an extra impetus for getting rid of pennies: inflation has made coppers almost worthless. I mean, what can you actually buy for just one pence these days...? Anything...?
The cash management company Vaultex has 1300 cages each holding tens of thousands of coins. Which nobody wants.
And personally they are just an irritation.... when I do pay with cash I'm never glad to see them, they just jingle around in and ruin my pockets very unlikely to be used ever again.....
To round up or down...?
I'm not convinced that getting rid of them would give a little boost to inflation....
Personally I'd probably round higher ticket items DOWN rather than up. I mean £19.95 sounds much better than £20.00 if I'm having to change from £19.99 and 4 pence is a relatively small margin once you're up there.
Maybe on smaller ticket items we'll have to see a rounding up because the margins are so small.
Come to think of it we'll probably see the poor being hurt more, as smaller shops will have to round up, whereas in supermarkets they will be able to round down because of the higher margins.
Final thoughts....
Pennies... enjoy them while they last!
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
The value of our some banknotes has turned into that of penny during the economic crisis.
Oh yes I guess that is a thing in places!
It's wild because I started to save all of my change a few years back. The metal in them is now worth more then the coins face value lol. The older stuff is were it's at the new pennies are blah
The metal is worth more, that really is a sign of the times!
I think when I was a kid you could still buy sweets for a penny each. We do like playing the 2p machines when we're at the seaside, but 1p coins are almost useless. I did get rid of some in the machine at the supermarket, but they take a cut. I think some people use them for the self-scan to pay part of the cost and do the rest by card. I have a pot of assorted coins in the bedroom, but it doesn't seem to go down.
It's a never ending war against those coppers, actually I'm going to beach tomo I may take some pennies with me!
The Canadian 1 cent has been demonetized from physical circulation in 2014 rounding to the nearest 5 cents in change. Electronically, it is still used in accounting, invoice, billing etc as if it was not really phased out. Funny how my old 25 pounds weight of copper pennies have more than 3 cents worth of copper in each of them now.
Is that factoring in the fact that they're just coated with copper..? Bonkers!
Here's the Coinflation link showing Canadian 1 cent pennies dated 1996 and earlier, keep in mind FX Can/USD is 0.72 hence worth more than $0.03 CAD. 1 Cents 1997 and newer are just copper coated steel yet even these are approaching par to face value.
There is a site that has a tool for calculating the value of UK copper/bronze coins but forgot where it is at this time.
OK cheers!
In Australia, I buy one 1can of soft drink and sweets for A$9
When the inflation of fiat currencies is removed from the monetary equation all those coins will take on a new value.
When the pound sterling comes back, those coins will become very valuable.
It's why the banks store them rather than melt them down again.
Here, in the united snakes, I expect that when the federal reserve note collapses they will have to let the change be the money of a reconstituted dollar, 371.25 grains of pure silver.
To take in all the coins would be a logistics nightmare, and since it's the banks with most of them, why wouldn't they?
All their coins get the new value, too.
Add to that, holding coins in your closet eliminates 3rd party risk.
1000usd comes in an 18 pound box, they quickly become a chore to move.
If I need to, I can always take them back to the bank to be put on the debit card.
Coins are bought by the fed from the treasury at face value, so a dollar of coins in my jar is a dollar out of the pockets of the people that made things this way.
I've always had a bit of a soft spot for hoarding coins myself- bit of a childhood throwback!
Pennies have become essentially useless these days. However, my kids enjoy collecting and earning them! My neighbor and my wife give them a penny for every weed pulled from the front yard and every leaf picked up from the rocks in the backyard.
That's just about their value!