Farewell, little friend: Saying good-bye to the penny

Laureen F. Guenther  

Times Contributor      

 

The Royal Canadian Mint said good-bye, a few weeks ago, to an old friend – a friend who’s been an official and essential part of life in our country since 1858, when the British Royal Mint struck the very first Canadian penny.

In the 155 years since that day, our little brown penny has always displayed some variation of a maple leaf design, except for the 1967 Centennial version featuring a rock dove. The current maple leaf twig imprint has been our one-cent symbol since 1937. 

Traditionally, our penny was perfectly round and made of copper. For 14 years, however – from 1882 to 1996 – it became 12-sided, to make it more identifiable by people with visual impairments. Then, in 1997, its substance changed too; it became copper-plated zinc or copper-plated steel, making Canada’s least valuable coin even less expensive to produce.

Between 1908 and 2012, 35 billion Canadian pennies were produced, enough to circle the earth 16 times. They’d weigh about 94 million kilograms, twice as much as the unsinkable Titanic.

That weight won’t increase by a single penny more, for the Canadian penny was as unsinkable as the Titanic itself. Winnipeg’s Royal Canadian Mint struck its last penny on May 4, 2012, and delivered its last penny loads to financial institutions on February 4 of this year.

Now, all across the country, retailers are announcing whether or not they give and receive pennies in payment. Customers making cash purchases are reviewing their elementary school lessons about rounding up and rounding down. Canadians are asking each other if it’s worth keeping the pennies we have and wondering how the departure of the penny will impact our lives. 

All across the country, Canadian culture is just a little different than it used to be.

The humble penny is still legal tender in Canada, however, and some agencies are suggesting the best place for the penny is in a charity.

When the Cheadle Lions Club heard rumours, two years ago, that the Canadian government might discontinue the penny, they had a large metal box built and placed in the civic centre hallway, where it’s been collecting pennies and other coins ever since. Marlene Risdon, club secretary, said every cent of those donations supports local projects — Strathmore Lions Splash Park, children’s and youth programs in Strathmore, and trips for school students, to name only a few. 

“There’s a lot of things, a lot of local projects,” Risdon said, inviting people to keep giving support. “If anybody’s got loose change, they can just throw it in there.”

Tim Hortons also accepts pennies and other coins for their Tim Hortons Children’s Foundation, which sends disadvantaged children to camp. The coin collection began long before the penny was discontinued, but Angel Cortez, afternoon supervisor at the Pine Road location, says people may be bringing in more pennies now. 

“I saw three guys bring in real big bags of pennies,” he said.

Strathmore A&W began a penny drive last year, part of their drive to support Multiple Sclerosis research. Jaycee Peters, a Strathmore A&W supervisor, said this year they renamed it The End of the Penny Drive, and made it their goal to raise 1,000,000 pennies. For every pound of pennies donated, the donor receives one draw entry for a $100 gift certificate, and the store displays a graph of the weight of specific amounts of pennies. 

“The manager (Will Whatley) … weighed out $20 in pennies, $5 in pennies, $10 in pennies,” Peters said, “so that… however much money you would like to donate, that you get a fair chance at the raffle.”

Most recently, the Langdon Community Association and the Mountain View Credit Union also joined forces to begin a Penny Drive, supporting a rebuilding of Langdon’s community playground. The bank and other Langdon businesses are displaying penny-collecting containers, and the Community Association will soon host Penny Rolling Parties.

Whether we put our remaining pennies in wallets, piggy banks, or penny donation jars, the penny itself is passing into history, leaving a small, maple leaf-shaped mark on our lives.