By Michael Weissenstein and Joseph B. Frederick
New York (AP) – President Donald Trump talks about great change in his second term. But he does not forget the small change either.
Trump ordered the Treasury Department to stop making money with a sentence of February 10 on his social media account which followed years of conservatives stressing that the establishment of a copper zinc disc in your pocket costs more than one hundred to the government – almost 4 cents today.
Will Trump’s order make the penny disappear? There is no sign that the American currency will stop pressing money in Denver and Philadelphia, and the Mint officials did not respond to clarification requests this week.
But the presidential commitment Penny is already felt in a niche world. It is a little -known world that depends on the purchase of wholesale cents, to load them in machines and to persuade parents to feed a few dollars in machines that buffer the designs on the sub -paws, adolescent mutant turtles – as they are extended between metal rollers with funfairs.
Small orbits of collectors and craftsmen have developed around them. And without the penny, everything faces an uncertain future.
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The last sous?
New copper cents disappeared from traffic in 1982 – 73 years after Lincoln’s first Penny was struck. They were replaced by coins mainly in zinc in the copper phase.
Solid copper ancients were more flexible and easier to tamp, making it hot items for children at Funfairs.
“So they will clean them when they lengthen the Dino or the shark of the printed part, he maintains a ghost image of the printed head of Lincoln,” said Brian Peters, general manager of Penny Press Machine Co., based in Minnesota, “Copper Pennies, they bring them.”
The jeweler Angelo Rosato worked for decades in the 1960s and 70s with hand -printing pennies with scenes from their scenes from New Milford, Connecticut, Hometown and Historical and Sentimental. Everything was obsessively cataloged, including more than 4,000 Pennys.
“We are big fans of the penny. Keep the penny, ”said Aaron Zablow from Roseland, New Jersey, who was with two of his sons at the American Dream Mall.
“I like the money,” said her 9 -year -old Mason son.
Some do not want the United States to stop making cents
Critics say that the rise in electronic commerce and billions of sub-circulation means that the United States could stop printing copper parts tomorrow and see little effect for decades. But some people look with fear to see if Trump’s Penny’s public critic will affect their business.
Alan Fleming, from Scotland, is the owner of Penny Press Factory, one of the many in the world that makes machines that flatten and stamp the parts.
“A pretty retired gentleman in Boston sold me more than 100,000 cents not circulated a few years ago, but he has no more,” wrote Fleming. “I will have to buy new cents not circulated in the next 12 months to keep my machines provided and work!”
Regardless of what happens to niche companies like Fleming, Penny Defenders say they are an important tool to lubricate the economy even if they are a proposal for loss of money.
Since the invention of money, humanity has been disputed with the question of small change, how to name as small amounts that the piece of metal itself is in fact more.
In 2003, Thomas J. Sargent and another economist wrote “the big problem of small change”, presented as “the first credible and analytically healthy explanation” of the reasons why governments had trouble maintaining a constant supply of small change due to high production costs.
Why pay money for the parts?
In a digital world, the line blurring between real and virtual parts, touching parts have been reassuring.
“What all this tells you about the United States as a country is that it is an incredibly conservative country with regard to money,” said Ute Wartenberg, executive director of the American Numismatic Society.
The money, the nickels, the ten sous are sometimes designed by tiny portraits of leaders and artists benchmarks using special software.
“It’s pretty cool because when I tell people what I do, I just say that my initials are on the penny,” said Joseph Menna, the 14th chief engraver of the United States Mint, in the 2019 film “Heads-Up: are we going to stop making cents?”
Fleming hopes that some lobbying could help: “Maybe we should take a trip to Washington and ask President Trump and Elon Musk and see if we can conclude an agreement on the purchase of millions of money.”
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
