For those of you who are collecting your pennies....

I have a penny bank and I also always stop to pick up a penny.

Plan to keep holding on.

What else am I going to do with them?

I admit it, I don't like pennies. But even more, I despise nickels. Nickels weigh way more than dimes, but are worth half as much.

In Europe, Germany, at least, restaurants don't deal with the copper coins, 1, 2, and 5 euro cents. They make all of their prices to the nearest 10 cent, e.g., 7,90 euro, so they don't have to deal with the small coins. Note: since tax and service are included, there are no small coin amounts added.

I like the way the Europeans do it. When I was growing up (I was six in 1950), what is $1 today was 7.5¢, and we didn't need a 1/10¢ coin.

Yeah, unless it's a 1943 steel penny or a pre-1982 copper penny I don't see the zinc junk being of any collector value for another 100 years if ever. Remember there's 114 billion cent coins in circulation.

Good riddance though.

Bostonphil, Go ahead and spend them.

There was a story on the news a few days ago. Some grocery store, maybe in Ohio, was giving gift cards for twice the value in exchange for pennies. One woman walked out with a $76 gift card.

I agree with VAP. I doubt very much whether pennies will be worth anything in the near or far foreseeable future. Good riddance to bad rubbish. I'm not sure why we ever had them in the first place.

Well, there was a time when the cent coin had purchasing power. At about 1950 the cent had the purchasing power that the dime has today. There was a time in 1990 when a Taco Bell taco cost 39 cents, a McDonald's cheeseburger cost 59 cents and a Big Mac cost $1.60. Or when fireballs or bazooka bubble gum was 1 to 5 cents candy . Back then, yeah those pennies made a difference.