The first American penny was struck in 1793. It was about the size of today’s half dollar and was officially called the “one cent piece” and reportedly designed by Benjamin Franklin of “a penny saved is a penny earned” fame. The Lincoln head penny that most of us are familiar with didn’t appear until 1909, introduced by Teddy Roosevelt  to commemorate the 100th birthday of 16th presidents birth.

Now while those are interesting facts about our smallest form of currency that isn’t what I find the most interesting thing about the penny. The thing I find most interesting about the penny is its value. Not its real value in terms of its buying power or even what it costs to produce one. Reportedly it costs 1.8 cents to actually produce the penny. No, what I am talking about is the value that Americans place on the penny.

  I am fortunate to have been born, raised and live in the United States. A nation of incredible wealth by most any standard in the world.  So wealthy in fact that I cannot tell you how many times I have heard the phrase used, well it’s just a penny.  I cannot tell you how many times I have seen pennies on the ground and people will just walk by them and  even won’t take the time or effort to just bend over to pick them up. So wealthy that in most convenience stores (at least in my area of the world) there are little trays by the cash registers so that if your total is say $1.03 they will just accept a dollar from you they will take the pennies from the tray. I woudl venture to say that if you walked in and just asked the cashiers if you could just have one they would give it to you.

 I have always been a little astonished by my fellow Americans apathy for the penny. I mean it is real money! It has value! I understand it isn’t much but it is still something! If you’re a crypto enthusiast  as of the writing of this post a penny is worth 107 satoshis.  Would you bend down and pick up 107 satoshis right now?  Would you push a button if you could get one DAI? I know I would!

I’m sure there are lots of underlying reasons why so many people have the “its just a penny “ mentality and Im not even going to try and speculate what all of them are. In fact, I would rather if you’re reading this give me your thoughts as to why. For me, in some ways I welcome people walking by them because I am not so wealthy , lazy or apathetic to bend over and pick them up.  In fact I even have a penny in a frame in my office.

Why would you frame a penny you might ask? Well that comes with a story. Years ago I bought a house to flip. It was a real mess inside so of course I had to get it cleaned out before we could start the remodel and there was lots of junk left over from the previous occupants. Well along with the junk there was lots of spare change just lying around. It was kind of weird honestly. I would always pick pick up the loose change but it seemed like every time I went back over to the house I would find more and more loose change. I even joked to my friends that the way this house was paying out I didn’t know if I wanted to sell it. Well eventually the well ran dry and I was no longer finding any more loose change.

 Once the loose change gravy train ran out I moved on to the remodel, which involved some keeping of the old baseboards and just repainting them. Well one day when I was over inspecting some of the work I saw at the base of the baseboard itself on the floor was a penny. Just one, all by itself , was a penny and it had been painted over by the painter. Now I know he had to see it because they were painting it by hand and it would have been right in front of his face, but yet he didn’t bother to pick it up and just painted right over it. And you’ll have to trust me to tell you these weren’t high priced painters, they were basically day laborers.

That incident really struck me how apathetic and lazy some people were about the penny. How little value they placed on it even though it is real money and how truly lucky we are to have what most of the rest of the world don’t have, disposable income.  So as a reminder for me to never become one of those people who takes  money just lying on the street for granted I framed that penny.  I put it in my office right next to my desk so that every time I look at it, it reminds  me to never become  so lazy and apathetic  so that my mindset ever becomes,  “ it’s just a penny”.  

Anyway I hope you enjoyed this post and remember with one push of the button you could  acquire some real money for yourself! Don’t be like the painter, its as easy as pushing a button.