So long, penny. The one cent coin is disappearing from the lives of Canadians, just as it has already disappeared from the lives of Australians. The official reason is that the coin is no longer cost-effective, as the metal value is worth more than its face value. The unofficial reason, for myself at least, is that pennies are annoying, a bit of clutter that makes the wallet heavier and, when forgotten in garments, the washing machine louder. I won't miss them.
But now that they're being removed from circulation, we still have to figure out what we're going to actually do with the remaining coins. Let's be clear here, a large number were produced every year, 662,750,000 in 2011 alone. We have billions of pennies, mostly found between couch cushions, and no real practical use for them. Well, less of a practical use for them, at least, since the only previous use - annoying people behind us in line while we dig out exact change - has been rendered obsolete. It is now time to think of creative ways to use the most useless of coins. The most obvious, and most practical, would probably be for a charitable donation. I'm not suggesting that this become the only charitable donation one makes, but if that's where all of our pennies go it could add up. Charities across the country are doing penny drives, collecting people's little brown coins in order to tie in the death of the currency to the project they are raising money for. It's a clever way to deal with something people are trying to discard, though the work of rolling and depositing the coins might make some of these groups question whether it was really a great idea. Still, if I see someone requesting some pennies for their cause, I'll probably throw in the stragglers that live in my wallet.
Then again, if you're not interested in the betterment of your fellow man, you could also hoard pennies. Since it's going out of circulation, the Royal Canadian Mint is planning on melting down the pennies it can get its hands on. This is going to be a long process, it's estimated that it will take three or four years. That's three or four years that you can spend collecting as many pennies as possible, sealing them away, and hoping that perhaps that example from 1985 will somehow become the rarest of the lot, highly prized by collectors. Maybe that penny will be so worthwhile to collectors that you can retire off of the funds raised. Or, maybe it'll be a bust, and you'll be stuck with an attic full of useless coins. That's the joy of collecting as an investment.
One can even get creative. A quick search of craft marketplace etsy.com reveals people turning pennies into jewelry or other forms of art, including a big ball of pennies. Collect enough, you might even be able to make a couch out of pennies, an artistic statement about the final destination of most coins that are carelessly tossed into pockets. The possibilities are endless, and since there are still several billion pennies out there, there's a ton of material that can be used for all manner of creative expression.
The penny was an instantly recognizable bit of currency, but thanks to outside factors has long been a mostly useless piece of currency. Now that it's dead, we can choose to either honor it, or toss it away to get melted down to its core components. Honestly, I just want to be rid of the stupid things.
