Penny (currency)

“ Even gold and silver are too costly for small currency. A silver penny now weighs 7-1/4 grains, and a gold penny would weigh only half a grain. The pretty octagonal quarter-dollar tokens circulated in California are the smallest gold coins I have seen, weighing less than four grains each, and are so thin that they can almost be blown away. ”

“ For this reason, according to his own account, proceeding upon an act of the convention now sitting, he ordained the old coin to be brought to the cunyie-house, where it would be ‘clippit, and put in ane close lockit coffer upon the count and inventar of the quantity receivit frae every person;’ and meanwhile the lately issued genuine placks and lions were to have currency at twopence and a penny apiece respectively—that is, at denominations above their value. Any one hereafter possessing the false coin, was to be punished as an out-putter of false money. ”

“ It is for a similar reason that we say, if there remain anything which can be either identified or confounded with a penny, it should be lowered rather than raised in value. Small prices are not easily adjusted, and the temptation in the other case lies on the side of the dealer not to alter them. It is more certain, for instance, that a baker will take care to divide 2s. worth of bread into twenty-five penny-loaves, when a penny comes to be the twenty-fifth of a florin, than that he will divide 1s. worth into ten only, if a penny become the tenth of a shilling. ”

“ The boy or man who has made up his mind to save pence, and has found an old teapot on the mantelshelf but an insecure custodian, would not like to pass on to the savings bank at one stride. No, the humbler office close by, with an easy, sympathising, domestic air about it, which takes a penny, indeed adopts the very name of this coin, that is the house for him to keep his account at—the best stepping stone to the larger establishments. ”

“ Ruding, from whom it has received the latest as well as the most elaborate investigation, comes, though not without hesitation, to the following conclusion: "That the penny, halfpenny, farthing, and half-farthing were actual coins; as was probably the triens, which divided the penny into three equal parts; and that the mancus, the mark, the ora, the shilling, and the thrimsa, were only money of account; or, that if the mancus was ever current among the Anglo-Saxons, it was a foreign coin, and was never imitated in their mints." [15] There is no doubt that the pound was merely money of account. ”

“ Pennies were the one thing he seemed to desire, and he made his eyes flash covetously whenever one was produced. True to his theory, the savages concluded that the gold, being of slight value, must be disposed of first. A penny, worth fifty times as much as a sovereign, was something to retain and treasure. Doubtless, in their jungle-lairs, the wise old gray-beards put their heads together and agreed to raise the price on pennies when the worthless gold was all worked off. Who could tell? Mayhap the strange white men could be made to give even twenty sticks for a priceless copper. ”

“ It has been supposed that the people before, and also perhaps after this, used to make halfpence and farthings for themselves, by breaking the penny into halves and quarters, which, it has been said, they were more easily enabled to do from the coin having on one side of it a cross very deeply indented. ”

“ Item, for the great scarcity that is at present within the realm of England of half-pence and farthings of silver, it is ordained and established that the third part of all the money of silver plate which shall be brought to the bullion, shall be made in half-pence and farthings. This shows that by the words half-penny and farthing of lawful money in that statute concerning the passing of pence, is meant a small coin in half-pence and farthings of silver. ”

“ He also reduced the weight of the penny to a standard, ordering that it should weigh thirty-two grains of wheat taken out of the middle of the ear. This penny was called the penny sterling. Twenty of these pence were to weigh an ounce; whence the penny became a weight, as well as a coin. By subsequent acts it has been further reduced. In ancient statutes, the penny was used for all silver money; hence the ward-penny, the avert-penny, the rete-penny, &c. ”

“ Then they go to an automatic weighing machine, which throws out all the imperfect coins. In 1897 Pennsylvania took the most pennies, 11,000,000. New York came next with a demand for 9,000,000, and in New Mexico, where the penny is little used, only 4,000 were asked for. It is estimated that 100,000 pennies a year are lost in various ways. ”

“ The penny itself is a matter which leads one into thought. The vastness of mind which has been brought to bear on the production of the coin is itself worthy of consideration. Before any coin can be sanctioned by the realm, it has to go through the ordeal of Her Majesty's Government, and after all has been done to the satisfaction of the authorities, a little bit of copper—though now, for the good of our pockets, mixed with an alloy—is made to minister to our wants in ways which I hope to lay before you as plainly and shortly as possible. ”

“ A penny saved is the seed of pounds saved. And pounds saved mean comfort, plenty, wealth, and independence. But the penny must be earned honestly. It is said that a penny earned honestly is better than a shilling given. A Scotch proverb says, "The gear that is gifted is never sae sweet as the gear that is won." What though the penny be black? "The smith and his penny are both black." But the penny earned by the smith is an honest one. ”

“ Then returning to his table, with the mat and the coin on it still in his hand, he delivers patter to the following effect:
“Now I am going to show you a nice easy way of making money. I was told when I was a small boy, ‘Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves.’ I believe they do. The pounds take such good care of themselves that very few of them seem to come my way. But you can make a bit even with pennies, if you know how to set about it. All you need is a really good penny to start with. It doesn’t matter how you get the penny. ”

“ Perhaps nothing better measures the intensity of the maintenance struggle here, and better indicates the minute economies practiced, than the value of their smallest currency unit, the Cash, used in their daily retail transactions. On our Pacific coast, where less thought is given to little economies than perhaps anywhere else in the world, the nickel is the smallest coin in general use, twenty to the dollar. For the rest of the United States and in most English speaking countries one hundred cents or half pennies measure an equal value. ”

“ The supposition, amounting almost to a certainty, is that the “short cross” pennies of Henry II. continued to be struck and issued during this reign as well as in the early part of the next. The Irish coins of John have—Penny, full-faced, crowned bust, within a triangle, sceptre in the right hand; on the left of the head a rose. Halfpenny and Farthing, head in triangle, on either side a star; one variety of halfpenny, called the “full moon halfpenny,” has the face filling up the whole field of the coin, the inner circle forming the outline of the face. ”

“ Money is independence, and money is made by putting pennies together. Besides, I work so hard for mine,—and so do you,—that I can't find it in my heart to waste a penny on drink, when I can put it beside a few other hard-earned pennies in the bank. It's something for a sore foot or a rainy day. There's that in it, Jack; and there's comfort also in the thought that, whatever may happen to me, I needn't beg nor go to the workhouse. The saving of the penny makes me feel a free man. The man always in debt, or without a penny beforehand, is little better than a slave. ”

“ In England, at the time of William the Conqueror, 1£, then a pound of pure silver, and the shilling, 1-20 of a pound, existed only as money of account, while the penny, 1-240 of a pound of silver, was the largest silver coin in existence. On the other hand, there are no shillings and pence in England to-day, although they are legal denominations for certain parts of an ounce of gold. Money as money of account may exist exclusively in idea, while the money in actual existence may be coined according to an entirely different standard. ”

“ There is no need in any household for even a penny a day to be wasted; and yet if we look closely into things, how much money value is lost daily in some one or other of the ways we have mentioned. In the course of the year, the daily pennies mount up to many pounds, and we are sure that it is much safer once in a way lavishly to spend the shillings than to be habitually careless of the outgoings of the pence. ”

“ The government accepts no amount under one franc, or about 20 cents in American money. Now, for a boy to carry 20 cents in his pocket is a little rash. If he does not lose his money he will surely spend it. To save him from either unfortunate predicament the school teacher sells him as many penny stamps as he has pennies to purchase them with. ”

“ In the same way the word penny continues to flourish among us, despite the fact that there has been no American coin of that name for more than 125 years. We have nickel-in-the-slot machines, but when they take a cent we call them penny-in-the-slot machines. ”

“ A penny seems a small sum to talk about, and with many, I am sorry to say, is looked upon as so insignificant as to be considered almost worthless; but I hope, before I have done, to show you something of the great value of even a penny, and of the effects and products we have been enabled to produce and dispose of with a reasonable profit at the cost of one penny. ”

“ In Anglo-Saxon and mediæval times the want of small coins—that is, a currency representing a small value—was much felt, and this gave rise to the occasional issue of spurious, or rather base, coins to supply the deficiency, as it was found the smaller pieces—for instance, the pennies when broken up for use as halfpence and farthings—were unfit for general use among the rough-handed population. ”

“ In effect, however, there is but one unit, the dollar; because a sum of money expressed in dollars is instantly converted into cents, or into mills, by a shift of the decimal point, without any appreciable mental effort. In Great Britain, however, the currency not being decimal, but divided into guineas, pounds, crowns, florins, shillings, pence and farthings, there are seven different units. Pencil and paper will generally be required by any but skilled mental arithmeticians to transfer a sum of money from one expression to another. ”

“ A very striking instance of the value of a penny is set before us in that most wonderful system the penny-postage, the institution of which was a boon to the kingdom that cannot be too highly appreciated. It enables rich and poor alike to bring their thoughts and desires into communication with each other, and so relieve anxious cares in regard to the health and wealth, the joys and sorrows of friends in an easy manner. A penny stamp can convey all our requirements, whether for good or for evil, and many a large sum is now transmitted under its care. ”

“ When the gold or silver has all gone from circulation, and an equal quantity of paper has taken its place, suppose that a still further issue is superadded. The same series of phenomena recommences: prices rise, among the rest the prices of gold and silver articles, and it becomes an object as before to procure coin in order to convert it into bullion. There is no longer any coin in circulation; but if the paper currency is convertible, coin may still be obtained from the issuers, in exchange for notes. ”

“ On this occasion I addressed a letter to a noble Lord, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, suggesting what appeared to me the proper remedy for this evil. I proposed that, with a view to the general [Pg 234] reform of the coins of the realm, all the deficient gold coins should in the first place be called in and recoined, and that in future the currency of the gold coin should be regulated by weight as well as by tale, and that the several pieces should not be legal tender if diminished below a certain weight. ”

“ If the cheaper coin is forced into circulation, it will, if coined without limit, soon become the sole standard of value, and thus defeat the desired object, which is a currency of both gold and silver which shall be of equivalent value, dollar for dollar, with the universally recognized money of the world. ”

“ These coppers, however, ought not to be used beyond the value of the cent, for then would arise the confusion of dealing with the 100 millets in the florin, or what would popularly be termed an odd half-penny in every shilling. For the same reason, the adjustment of prices, in order to be equitable, should be calculated downwards from the pound and florin, not upwards from the penny. Thus, if a labourer's wages have been 1s. 3d. a day, his employer must not say that 15 pence are 60 farthings—that is, 6 cents; but 1s. 3d. is five-eighths of a florin, which amount to about 6 cents 2 millets. ”

“ Certainly those vagabond merchants who take the penny as the unit of our coinage live somehow; but who ever saw them complete a bargain? There is a man near the corner of Great Portland Street, Oxford Street, who offers little Jacks-in-the-box, which jump out with a spring and squeak, at only a penny. I have passed him, I may say without any exaggeration, hundreds of times; he is always nipping the spring of the box-toy, and starting the little image, then shutting him down again, and thus giving him an intermittent view of society throughout the day ”