To the Editor:
I'm writing in regards to Devin Wilger's recent article (February 7, 2013 issue of The News Review) What can we do with billions of pennies?
I took Mr. Wilger's column as rather "tongue-in-cheek" with a bit of a serious side as well. He contradicts himself first by saying that there is no real practical use for pennies, then by saying that they'd be of great value for charities. Alone, like nickels, dimes and quarters, they don't mean much, but yes, they do add up. Anyway here is my "two cents worth" on the topic of pennies.
I've always seen pennies as cold, hard cash and equal to all other change in my wallet and always used them as such. Quite often when shopping I usually have exact change. I don't have jars of pennies/change in my house as I always spend it, thus keeping my wallet lighter.
Pennies were produced by the Royal Can-adian Mint and are legal tender. I'm not bothered by people ahead of me digging out exact change while trying to pay for something. I think what is more tiresome is a patron trying different debit and credit cards with none of them working for various reasons, thus tying up the line at the check-out. What can be more irksome is when all the debit machines or credit card lines are down. In these cases it is a very modern problem and not the fault of good 'ole currency. Such things would never have happened in the good old days. A single power outage makes debit and credit cards obsolete. Sometimes the new way isn't always better than the old way.
I can understand ending the production of the one cent coin for economic reasons. I guess it just all comes down to common "cents."
Mitchell T. Wlock, Yorkton, SK.
