UNWANTED PENNIES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 22 October 1924, Page 3

UNWANTED PENNIES.

HOARD OF SEVENTEEN MILLIONS. Mysteries of circulation. A discovery has just been made bes!de which Ali Baba’s find sinks into insignificance, for all Ali Babas donkeys would be unable to carry off the hoard, and all the cunning of Morgiana would be of no avail to facilitate its removal. The fact is that lying in a spot in the very heart of Loncion there are at this moment some* thing approaching 17,000,000 pennies of which their owners cannot get rid! The Gas Light and Coke Company, to whom this treasure belongs, says the Daily Telegraph, are not likely to protest .against ou.r revealing the fact that it is located in the subterranean fastnesses, of their Horse-ferry Road headquarters, for it weighs 158 tons, and its. attempted removal is not a feat .likely to attract any band of cracksmen.

The , company cannot get rid just now of this colossal collection of coppers; the banks refuse to look at it, and, though, no doubt, Santa- Claus would jump q,t the chance of getting hold of it, the directors are not prepared to entertain overtures, from that quarter. Moreover, apropos of Santa Claus,, the pennies will vanish in the normal way as Christmas approaches. At that period there will come big demands for coppers, needed to meet the requirements of seasonal purchases, and then the banks and general commercial concerns will relieve the company of a great portion of the hoard now lying idle. The whole subject of the variations of. what may be called ; the pennies market presents some intriguing. mysteries, and those who have occasion to know the circumstances are baffled by' the changes that occur. It is understandable that many more pennies are in circulation at Christmastide than at other periods of the year, but there are aspects of the .matter that are shrouded behind a veil past-which one cannot see. / Sometimes there come suddenly to banks and to trading companies whose type of business causes them to accumulate pennies, urgent requests for coppers for particular localities, the reason, it is assumed, being the holding of a fair or some regional event in which tens of thousands Pf'coins change hands. “It is really impossible sometimes to account for these sudden demands for coppers,” an obliging official of the Gas Light and Coke Company informed a reporter, and he added reflectively: “There was a big application frofn Scotland lately.” Pennies wanted wholesale in Scotland! Here, surely, there was opening out a. field of entrancing speculation. But. it was in vain that one sought for an explanation for the S.O.S. that Scotland had sent out ; the demand, was an illustration of the general mystery with which the whole subject is invested. The .mo're one heard, indeed, of the flutcuations of the pennies market the more convinced did one become that here is a fascinating field of inquiry for the student of. the habits of , the people. Apart from demands made now and again by the banks, the company, receives loeriodic applications for comparatively big amounts of copper from pawnbrokers and publicans. The field of investigations is really illimitable, but; the task of getting definite information On , most of its side-paths 6eems . hopeless. But let us return to the one indisputable amazing fa.ct that at this moment the Gas Light and Coke Company has on, its hands 17,000,000 pennies. These come, of course, from the slot,meters, of , which the, company • has 550,000, all of which, with the; exception of about, 10,000, are. concerned exclusively, with pennies. One experienced a thrill of pride in his fellowcreatures when it was learned that attempts to rob the company are very few. .There is a refreshing honesty about , the dishonesty of some of the, consumers; these people simply smash Open the receptacle and help themselves to the pennies accumulated therein; then, when the collector comes, they make no bones about a misappropriation which they perpetrated to meet a- sudden emergency. While there is something overwhelming in the thought of a store of 17,000,000 pennies, it should be explained, that of the Gas Light and Coke Company's total annual, revenue (which last year reached over £9,500,000), no less than about , £2,500,000 comes in coppers—that is to say, the company collects 600,000,000 pennies in twelve months. In the year 1921, when gas was 'much dearer, the pennies were much more , numerous still— 720,000,000., Moreover, it is to be borne in mind that, in addition' to the £70,000 worth of copper now “in stock. ’ ’ there are at any moment as many as 42,000,000 pennies—between £150,000 to £175,000 worth—in the slot meter*. The bulk of the annual revenue of copper is got rid of by the ordinary process of paying into the bank within a certain limit—for no bank will deal entirely, with so stupendous an accumulation of coppers.—and by supplying tradespeople, and organisations that happen to be in need of pennies. Moreover, it should be explained that a very big proportion of the pennies taken from the meters is exchanged for silver by the collectors themselves. As £5 worth •of pennies weighs 2olb, a collector naturally does as much of this changing as he possibly, can. and generally housewives are anxious for a return of the always convenient pennies; thus, instead of coming to the office with an intolerable burden 'of copper, the collector brings much of,his money in silver. Even if he fails to dispose of the pennies to their orignal owners, he lias, as a rule, many demands made on him en route to the office; in fact; there are times when the men are literally chased hv tradespeople, who are in urgent need of .small change. Even bank managers have been known to lie in wait for pounds’ worth of coppers, which' the collector is always Quite prepared to disgorge—though at Christmas time he finds himself faced with an embarrassing crowd of competitors. The extent to which the collectors get rid of the pennies is indicated by the fact that the copper paid by the company into l the hank in the ordinary course of banking amounts to less than £750.000 per year—that is £750,000 out of- a total pennv revenue of £2.500.000. “ Yet here is £70,000 worth of coppers Iving idle, and destined to remain idle for some months. It cannot he banked in the ordinary course, and to bank it under - seme extraordinary arrangement would be too costly. It is cheaper, in fact, to keep it. “The company has,” our informant stated, “considered every possible method of netting rid of it, hut we have found that none is financially attractive, in other words, if we attempted to shift it about, the process would cost more than the interest which we are losing