Help needed: fun trivia for U.S. Cents?

What was the sixth? Oh, of course 2009 with the four Bicentennial designs. Duh.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

I have always believed that the lack of 1815 cents primarily had to do with scarlet fever in Philadelphia and that some were struck during that year, but were struck with 1814 dated dies.

 

I don't believe you'll find any U.S. struck coin labeled "penny" (i.e. 1/100 of a "pound"), nor dollar labeled pound. The coin is labeled "1 cent", and calling it anything other than what it's labeled, I believe will just cause confusion for very impressionable individuals, who occasionally respect educators. You may show them a "penny" if you have one.

As an educator I try to show students the origin and reason for calling something other than its proper name if it has a differing/slang title.

JMHO

 

this was a great policy until a couple of years ago when the US Mint started using the term "penny"

 

Thank you for the correction. Please submit official mint documents that can be shown to the students which would support our government legal use acknowledgement of the believed internationally known sovereign "title".

I've been involved in expensive litigation over something less significant than the use of a believed copyrighted title.

 

congrats, rich

the Mint press releases have used the term sporadically for the past couple of years.

No, I don't care to document it.

 

That was due to a copy & paste, but thanks for the catch.

 

You are correct, as the following link indicates: https://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/circulatingCoins/index7757.html?action=CircPenny

The U.S. Mint link shows the colloquial term (informal name) "penny" associated to the legal term "one cent". The term penny is believed to have been related/used because of an ancestral connection to the English Pilgrim Fathers who came to "America".

I believe this link may properly describe the derivation of the term "penny", that may be useful in explaining the interchange of the terms "cent" and "penny":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny

It's believed the U.S. Mint took liberties in using the term "penny", knowing that the derivation history would probably support unchallenged informal usage.

JMHO

 

The Mint exhausted their supply of cent planchets in October of 1814. Since the planchets came from Boulton and Watt in England, and at the time we were still at war with England, we could not get more. When the war ended in March 1815 the Mint placed another order for planchets with Boulton & Watt. They arrived in mid to late December 1815 and striking began using dies dated 1816.

I'm not aware of Philadelphia having a problem with Scarlet Fever, I believe you mean Yellow Fever. While Yellow fever was causing annual shut downs in the 1790's I'm not sure they were still having the problem in 1814.

 

Excellent info as always, Conder. You're right, it was yellow fever and the cents struck in 1815 were struck with 1816 dated rather than 1814 dies.

Once again, I learned something new and stand corrected.

 

In the early 1980's the San Francisco Zoo posted signs around the penguin exhibit asking people not to throw "pennies" into the pond as the new zinc cents were poisonous to penguins.

Here is an article from the Denver Post about a similar problem at the Denver Zoo:
http://www.denverpost.com/2007/01/25/vets-fish-metal-from-penguins-bellies