penny loafers

This week's news about pennies costing 1.4 cents to make reminded me of a recent conversation with my son. He was excited to tell me about an experiment in his chemistry class. The teacher heated a penny until the zinc core melted leaving only a copper shell. Pennies are made of zinc coated with copper. Nickels, dimes and quarters are made of copper coated with nickel.

Whenever pennies are in the news somebody always tries to get them abolished. The penny deserves to stay. I'm too cheap to support any plan that would round prices up to the nearest nickel. If pennies were eliminated, those same people would probably go after nickels next and try to get everything rounded up to the nearest dime.

It's too bad that pennies now cost more to make than they are worth but I have to ask: why does the mint needs to make so many new pennies anyway? What happened to all the old ones? There are usually plenty in the leave-a-penny/take-a-penny dish at the convenience store. Are that many people squishing them into instant souvenirs? I know of one auto dealership where the bored salesmen toss pennies down the incline of the car lot. I picked up an extra 12 cents during my last remote broadcast.