Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/07/14/covid-puts-u-s-penny-back-on.html
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TL;DR the company that makes zinc blanks for the penny is one of the major lobbyists. Also, nickels also cost more to make than they are worth in currency.
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Good riddance.
I think there’s also a kind of obstinate, nostalgic inertia among Americans, about keeping certain things going the way they’ve always gone, that helps to keep it alive.
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You think the dollar bill would be on the list too - I can’t think of a 1st world nation with such a worthless paper note.
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I was going to say Estonia, but I guess they’re on the Euro now. Anyhoo, if the US is still “first world”, then “first world” doesn’t mean what it used to.
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That was 20 years ago.
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‘The Cent! The end is near!’
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We won’t be for long now that we’re governed by imbeciles that promote the equivalent of witchcraft.
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Inb4 European smugness…
Shit.
In order to be true, those words would have to be written into the OP. Preferably as the first three words.
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I remember hearing somewhere that the reason the dollar coins aren’t catching on is because many register tills only have 4 slots: quarter, dime, nickel, and penny. How cool would it be to simultaneously get rid of the penny and the paper dollar!
Hell, I don’t even bend over for less than a quarter on the ground.
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I don’t bend over for more than a quarter either. If I see paper money on the ground, it’s probably a religious tract disguised as paper money. Dimes, maybe. Nickels I have little use for.
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I LOVE those. I once paid my kids’ allowance one week with one 
Didn’t take them long to figure that one out and I had to swap it out for the real stuff.
Yeah, yeah. I’m a crappy dad
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I expect that’s a contributing factor, but it seems to me that a huge part of the failure of the dollar coins is they keep making them the same size as quarters.
If they want dollar coins to catch on they have to make it impossible to confuse them with quarters.
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Sacagawea begs to differ.
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I love these because people DON’T pick up paper money on the ground anymore. I’m fine with being fooled most of the time in order to find a buck every now and then. I found a $10 in 1992, and a few years later - a $20. It’s even better than finding money in the dryer, or in a pair of pants you haven’t worn in awhile.
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This has to be one of my favorite US coins. A close second is the JFK $0.50 piece.
Honorable mention goes out to the different quarters for each state and territory, as well as the National State Parks. I got my kiddos one of these, and it’s so much fun trying to find them all. We’re still missing Guam, Idaho, and American Samoa.
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I guess yer king has been debasin’ yer coinage, then, eh?
That’s not even an honest copper, is it? Just base-metal zinc tarted up to look like copper.
Virtually worthless, indeed.
And yet it’s ‘relatively expensive’ to make?
Whoo, good thing it’s not made of anything actually valuable, then – like, say, silver, or gold, or even common copper.
Those would be waaaaaay too expensive to ever make coins out of, amirite?
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Easy: copy what happens on the other side of the pond.
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I did find this:
Kept it for the novelty value.
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