Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 247, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 October 1910 — Puzzle to Trace the Lost Pennies [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Puzzle to Trace the Lost Pennies

Philadelphia. —what becomes of the vast volume of copper pennies that are turned out each year by the government? They are never, called in and redeemed like some kinds of currency and coins, but they seem to disappear as fast as they are stamped and put in circulation. It is unusual if the date on any of the pennies in a man’s purse at the end of the day is over ten years back, yet the Philadelphia mint, which coins all the copper. pennies, sends out in some years as many as $1,000,000 worth of them to the trade centers—--100,000,000, one-cent pieces. If laid flat, edge to edge, in a row they would reach more than one thousand miles. And still there are some sections of the country where the penny is little fcnpwn. In many of the mountain districts of the south the “York shilling,” 1214

cents, is still spoken of in trade, but no one ever h<ears the one-dent piece mentioned. In inany towns in the south and west the tradesmen offer nothing for a penny, a flve-oent purchase is the smallest that can be made. But of late there have been more demands for pennies from the west, and the government experts have declared that this is a sign of increased frugality. In the east, the chief use of the penny, outside of filling the child’s bank and buying the daily paper, is for the purchase of chewing gum and one-cent candies. The increase in the number of penny-in-the-slot phonographs and moving picture machines In the last few years shows another way to which the public has taken to get rid of its pennies. Uncle Sam takes in many pennies for stamps and post cards, and many of them flow into the contribution box in the churches and religious societies. But all these ways in which the penny is put to use does not explain where they eventually go or what makes ' them disappear in such vast quantities every year. Even the government coinage experts do not give a satisfactory answer to the problem.