Some Amazing Facts

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 7063, 24 January 1933, Page 10

Some Amazing Facts

POWER OF HUMBLE COIN. Five hundred million pennies have amazing coin of tho realm —for there is no equivalent to it in anl other country. It is amazing the number of small It is amazing tho number of small things it does and in the magnitude of tho total it reaches, says an English, newspaper. According to tho figures issued by the Royal Mint, there were issued in Britain between IS6O and 1930 no fewer than 1, 760,000,000 pennies. Of these 86,000,000 have been withdrawn. The banks, it is further stated, hold fewer than 400,000,000.

Giving every single one of tho population six coppers, that accounts for another 250,000,000. Allow a further 500,000,000 for businesses, gas companies, tramways, and tho like and wo get tho figure of 1,150,000,000. The other 500,000,000 must have “burned holes” for good and all. Just lost! . *

Motc than 100,000,000 pennies were collected from telephone call-boxes last year in the London area alone. Consider the thousands of automatic machines all over the country. If it were not for the humblo penny, nine-tenths of them would go out of existence. As it is, the organisations that control them reckon to gather up 2000 tons of pennies a year.

Match machines arc the most popular. No fewer than 250,000,000 boxes are sold by automatic machines in the course of a year. The weighing machines dispose of 20,000,000 tickets in the same period, and chocolate machines hand out 60,000,000 bars. Tho humble copper touches a phase of individual and crowd psychology that no other coin could possibly do. Nobody minds begging a penny at an awkward moment, but few would think of saying: “Got a sixpence handy?” A man with eighteen pence in coppers in his trousers is heavily laden. Ho at once becomes a person ready to distribute largesse for the sake of his own comfort!

What would happen to hospitals and flag days if there were no nimble pennies? Think of the number of amusement parks, piers and popular sideshows that would cease trading but for the humble copper. Try to imagine the incredible number of pennies that arc left under plates! The writer adds: “We aro deliberately careless of our pennies. This is a truth so sound that all manner of peoplo make fortunes out of it —merely by devising new ways of relieving us of our pennies. What’s a penny, anyway?

“There is no more valuable symbol of wealth than the humble copper. ‘Look after tho ponce and the pounds will look after themselves. ’ And the only time we do so is at tho toddling ago with a money-box—when, of course, we relieve others of their careless coppers! ”