OK - a Sanity check to Steve's rant :-)

Back in the mists of time, the US discontinued 1/2 pennies and standardized on the 1, 5, 10, 25, 50 cent and $1 pieces of coinage (I'll ignore gold coinage). People were paid less than a dollar an hour on average (Wage-earning men made an average $11.16 per 60 hour week in 1905 or $.19 per hour. Wage-earning women made an average $6.17 per week in 1905.) Today, the average salary is about $32 an hour or 150X more, simplistically reflecting a cumulative inflation of 15,000%.

In that context, not only the penny, but at a minimum, the nickel and dime should also be eliminated as essentially worthless. For all pragmatic purposes, the half-dollar is extinct and the $1 coinage has never become popular. This dates back to when, after the silver dollar bit the dust, the government came out with a similarly sized slug known as the Eisenhower dollar. These were uniquely awkward. while at lease the silver dollar's size had the excuse that it contained about an ounce of silver, the Eisenhower coin was just a pocket filler. Their next attempt was the Susan B. Anthony dollar which, while technically hexangular, was the same color and about the same size as a $.25 cent piece and easily confused. The solution of the subsequent attempt was simply to use a bronze-ish color for the coin, but few tended to use it. (My personal opinion is that the Brits had the right idea when they made the 1 pound coin about the size of three US nickels glued together which, as a relatively small slug could be easily distinguished in the dark of your pocket).

If the only coinage we had was a $.25 and a $1, life would be simpler and we would do just fine. To save money, it would even pay to issue a $5 coin as well.

Jeff