No Pennys For Your Thoughts- Canada to Scrap The 1 Cent Coin

The Detroit News: Canada to rid itself of the penny

Canada has announced it is scrapping the penny.

The humble one-cent piece is set to disappear from Canadian pockets, a victim of inflation.

Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced in the federal budget on Thursday that the Royal Canadian Mint will strike the last of the little coins this fall.

The budget says the cost of minting a penny has risen to 1.6 cents or $11 million a year. The budget says some Canadians consider the penny more of a nuisance than a useful coin.

At a cost of production more than 1.5 times its face value, it does make cents to give it up and round prices up or down to the nearest 5 cents.

The US got rid of the half cent in 1857.

The US penny has had a good run, but when it is costing 2.41 cents to produce every penny, it doesn't make much cents and in fact wastes over $60,200,000 to keep it around.

To think that the penny, a once proud silver coin modeled on and equivalent in value to the denarius (hence the old "1d" as a notation of its value) is now reduced to a 99% zinc slug coated with copper plating is sad for a traditionalist, but it is time to give it up in the face of inflation and the march of time.