A one penny coin from Ghana

A variety of low value coins, including a (historical) Irish 2 pence piece and many United States pennies. The Republic of Ghana is a country in West Africa. It borders Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast to the west Burkina Faso to the north Togo to the Ireland (pronounced /ˈaɾlənd/ Éire) is the third largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world The United States of America —commonly referred to as the

Two British 2 pence coins (below) and a 5 pence coin (above)

A silver copy of the rare and valuable 1930 Australian penny

A penny (pl. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located pence or pennies) is a coin or a unit of currency used in several English-speaking countries. main - title Coin keywords numismatics coin review A currency is a unit of exchange, facilitating the transfer of Goods and/or services It is one form of Money, where money is English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States

Value

In the 8th century, Charlemagne declared that 240 pennies or pfennigs should be minted from a pound of silver. The 8th century is the period from 701 to 800 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian / Common Era. Charlemagne (ˈʃɑrlɨmeɪn Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus meaning Charles the Great) (747 – 28 January 814 was King of the Franks from 768 to his The Pfennig (abbreviation Pf) is an old German coin or note which existed from the 9th century until the introduction of the Euro A single coin thus contained about 1. 9 grams of silver. (Today, this amount of silver would cost about 56p sterling. )

The penny is among the lowest denomination of coins in circulation.

• 1/100 of the British pound sterling (see British one penny coin), the former Irish pound, the Gibraltar pound, the Falkland Islands pound, or a coin with that value: see history of the English penny. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located The Pound Sterling ( symbol £; ISO code: GBP) subdivided into 100 pence (singular penny) is the Currency The Irish pound ( English) or punt Éireannach ( Irish) was the Currency of Ireland until 2002 The pound ( Currency sign: £; banking code: GIP) is the currency of Gibraltar. The pound is the currency of the Falkland Islands, a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic Ocean. main - title Coin keywords numismatics coin review
• 1/240 of the British pound sterling or Irish pound prior to February 15, 1971, of the Pound Scots prior to 1707, and also the pre-decimalisation currencies of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa (1/12 of the shilling), or a coin of that value. Events 590 - Khosrau II is crowned as king of Persia 1637 - Ferdinand III becomes Holy Roman Emperor Year 1971 ( MCMLXXI) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar of the 1971 Gregorian calendar. The pound Scots (Pund Scots was the national unit of Currency in the Kingdom of Scotland before the country entered into political and Currency union In the management of currencies, decimalisation (or decimalization) is the process of converting from traditional denominations to a " Decimal " For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. New Zealand is an Island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses (the North Island and the South Island The Republic of South Africa (also known by other official names) is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa The shilling is a unit of Currency used in current and former Commonwealth countries and was continued to be used in countries that left the commonwealth
• a common but unofficial name for the one-cent coin in the United States and in Canada, worth 1/100 of the dollar: see penny (U.S. coin), penny (Canadian coin). The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page The dollar (often represented by the Dollar sign: "$" is the name of the official Currency in several countries dependencies and other The United States one-cent coin is a unit of Currency equaling one one-hundredth of a United States dollar. In Canada, a penny is a Coin worth one cent or of a dollar. According to the Royal Canadian Mint, the official national term of This word is not used by the United States Mint or the Royal Canadian Mint; they use cent. The United States Mint primarily produces circulating coinage for the United States to conduct its Trade and Commerce. The Royal Canadian Mint (RCM French: Monnaie royale canadienne) produces all of Canada 's circulation Coins and manufactures circulation

In addition, variants of the word penny, with which they share a common root, are or were the names of certain units of currency in non-English-speaking countries:

• A fening is 1/100 of a Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark
• A pfennig was 1/100 of a German mark
• A penni was 1/100 of a Finnish markka

In the United States and Canada, "penny" is normally used to refer to the coin; the quantity of money is a "cent. The root is the primary lexical unit of a Word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents The konvertibilna marka ( Bosnian, Croatian and Latin-written Serbian, конвертибилна марка in Cyrillic-written Serbian, "convertible The konvertibilna marka ( Bosnian, Croatian and Latin-written Serbian, конвертибилна марка in Cyrillic-written Serbian, "convertible The Pfennig (abbreviation Pf) is an old German coin or note which existed from the 9th century until the introduction of the Euro The markka ( Finnish) or mark ( Swedish) was the Currency of Finland from 1860 until February 28, 2002, when The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page In many national currencies, the cent is a monetary unit that equals 1/100 of the basic monetary unit " Elsewhere in the English-speaking world, the plural of "penny" is "pence" when referring to a quantity of money and "pennies" when referring to a number of coins^[1]. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States main - title Coin keywords numismatics coin review Thus a coin worth five times as much as one penny is worth five pence, but "five pennies" means five coins, each of which is a penny.

When dealing with British or Irish (pound) money, amounts of the decimal "new pence" less than £1 may be suffixed with "p", as in 2p, 5p, 26p, 72p. Pre-1971 amounts of less than 1/- (one shilling) were denoted with a "d" which derived from the term "denarius", as in 2d, 6d, 10d. The Roman Currency system included the denarius (plural denarii) after 211 BC a small Silver coin, The lettering "new pence" was changed to "pence" on British decimal coinage in 1982. Irish pound decimal coinage only used "p" to designate units (possibly as this sufficed for both the English word "pence", and Irish form "pingin").

The British penny as a unit of currency dates back well over a thousand years, and for most of that period the silver penny was the principal denomination in circulation.

Other uses

O: Draped bust of Aethelred left. +ÆĐELRED REX ANGLOR	R: Long cross. +EADPOLD MO CÆNT
Anglo-Saxon silver 'Long Cross' penny of Aethelred II, moneyer Eadwold, Canterbury, c. Ethelred II ( c. 968 – 23 April 1016 also known as Æthelred II, Aethelred II, Ethelred the Unready, Æthelred the Unready 997-1003. The cross made cutting the coin into half-pennies or farthings (quarter-pennies easier

To "spend a penny" in British idiom means to urinate. An idiom is a Phrase whose meaning cannot be deduced from the literal Definition, but refers instead to a figurative meaning that is known only Urination, also known as micturition, voiding, and more rarely emiction, is the process of disposing Urine from the Urinary bladder The etymology of the phrase is literal; some public toilets used to be coin-operated, with a pre-decimal penny being the charge levied. Eventually, at around the same time as the introduction of decimal coinage, British Rail gradually introduced better public toilets with the name Superloo and the much higher charge of 6d. Decimal Day ( 15 February See also Rail transport in Great Britain, National Rail, Network Rail This article is about the defunct entity "British Railways" ^[2]

Finding a penny is sometimes considered lucky and gives rise to the saying, "Find a penny, pick it up, and all the day: you'll have good luck. " This may be a corruption of "See a pin and pick it up, all the day you'll have good luck" and similar verses, as quoted in The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore and other sources.

Nails

In the US, the length of a nail is designated by its penny size. This unit's abbreviation is d (e. g. 10d for 10 penny nails), as for British pence before decimalization. A smaller number indicates a shorter nail and a larger number indicates a longer nail. Nails under 1¼ in. , often called brads, are sold mostly in small packages with only a length designation (e. g. ½" (12 mm), 1¹⁄₈" (28 mm), etc. ).

It is commonly believed that the origin of the term "penny" in relation to nail size is based on the old custom in England of selling nails by the hundred. A hundred nails that sold for six pence were "six penny" nails. The larger the nail, the more a hundred nails would cost, hence the larger nails have a larger number for their penny size. This classification system was still used in England in the 18th century, but is obsolete there now. The 18th century lasted from 1701 to 1800 in the Gregorian calendar, in accordance with the Anno Domini / Common Era numbering system

Criticism

The physical handling and counting of pennies creates transaction costs that may be higher than a penny for every penny spent. In Economics and related disciplines a transaction cost is a Cost incurred in making an economic exchange Furthermore, as has been claimed for micropayments, due to mental transaction costs one penny may exceed the useful price granularity of almost all products and services sold over the counter—granularities of five or ten pence may be sufficient. Micropayments are means for transferring very small amounts of money in situations where collecting such small amounts of money with the usual Payment systems is impractical ^[3] Also, inflation periodically causes the metal value of pennies to exceed their face value, making them wasteful to mint. ^[4][5] Several nations have stopped minting equivalent value coins, and efforts have been made to end the routine use of pennies in several countries, including Canada and the United States. Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page The United States of America —commonly referred to as the ^[6]

See also

• Penny (Australian coin)
• Penny (British coin)
  • British one penny coin (pre-decimal)
  • British coinage
• Penny (Canadian coin)
• Irish penny coin
  • Irish penny (decimal coin)
• Penny (United States coin)
  • United States coinage
  • History of the Lincoln cent
  • 1943 steel cent
  • 1955 doubled die cent
  • 1974 aluminum cent
  • Take a penny, leave a penny
  • Legal Tender Modernization Act
  • Efforts to eliminate the penny in the United States
• Pfennig
• Smashed penny

References

1. ^ "Penny - Oxford English Dictionary". The Australian Penny was a coin used in the Commonwealth of Australia prior to decimalization The standard circulating coinage of the United Kingdom is denominated in pounds sterling ( symbol "£") and since the introduction of the two pound In Canada, a penny is a Coin worth one cent or of a dollar. According to the Royal Canadian Mint, the official national term of The United States one-cent coin is a unit of Currency equaling one one-hundredth of a United States dollar. United States coinage was first minted by the new republic in 1792 The Lincoln cent is the current one cent coin of the US Dollar. The 1943 steel cent was a variety of the US one-cent coin which was struck in steel due to wartime shortages of copper The 1974 aluminum cent was a one-cent coin proposed by the United States Mint in 1973 Take a penny leave a penny (sometimes Give a penny take a penny or penny tray) refers to a type of tray dish or cup often found in Gas stations and The Legal Tender Modernization Act ( was a bill proposed by United States Representative Jim Kolbe of Arizona in 2002. A debate exists within the United States government, and American society at large over whether the one-cent coin, commonly known as the penny should be eliminated The Pfennig (abbreviation Pf) is an old German coin or note which existed from the 9th century until the introduction of the Euro Elongated coins are Coins that have been flattened stretched and imprinted with a new design with the purpose of creating a commemorative or souvenir token oed. com.
2. ^ BBC Nation on Film - Rise and Fall of LNER Mod Cons - Engines Must Not Enter the Potato Siding: "Spend a 6d in the superloo"
3. ^ http://www.mytelus.com/ncp_news/article.en.do?pn=canada&articleID=2897480
4. ^ New York Times, "AROUND THE NATION; Treasurer Says Zinc Penny May Save $50 Million a Year", April 1, 1981
5. ^ USA Today, Barbara Hagenbaugh, "Coins cost more to make than face value", May 10, 2006
6. ^ Lewis, Mark (2002-07-05). See also 2002 (disambiguation Year 2002 ( MMII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 1295 - Scotland and France form an alliance the beginnings of the Auld Alliance, against England. Ban The Penny. Forbes. com. Retrieved on 2007-07-16. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 622 - The beginning of the Islamic calendar. 1054 - Three Roman legates fractured relations between the Western and

External links

• The MegaPenny Project - A visualisation of what exponential numbers of pennies would look like.
• Silver Pennies - Pictures of English silver pennies from Anglo-Saxon times to the present.
• Copper Pennies - Pictures of English copper pennies from 1797 to 1860.