Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1898-03-10
PENNIES AS MONEY.
yHE EXTENT TO WHICH OUR COPPER
COINS ARE USED.

L
All the pennies In the United States
are stamped at the Philadelphia Mint
but they are not, as most people sup
| pose, made there. The government
buys the blank coppers on which the
| design is stamped from Western firm,
each thousand cents costing SIPS. So
100 cents, with face value of 81, cost
the government less than one-fifth OF
that sum.
AS result of all this, Uncle Sam
makes big profit on his pennies. This
would not be true IL all the pennies
that are coined were presented for re-
demption. They never are, however,
for fully one-fifth of them seemingly
| go out of existence in mysterious ways.
| All the ways in which the pennies are
lost are as multifarious as the sins of
the usurer. If the lost pennies were
weighed, it is estimated that they
would tip the scales at $500 pounds.
When the blanks which which the
| cents are made reach the mint they are
which cuts them out, imprlnts the de-
sign and drops them into boxes
Then they are run through sorting
machine, which throws out any that
are imperfectly made and the rest pass
on to broad table, where they are
counted, not by hand, but by means of
| grooved case into which they fall 500
at a time. Then they are tied up in
canvas bags ready to be shipped away
as they are called for.
"One would think that the penny
would be the last coin to be counter
feited, but as matter of fact there are
more spurious cents than there are Of
dollars or dimes. A pound of copper,
enough to make 100 cents, can be
bought for IL cents, so that the coun-
terfeiters can make a good profit IL
they are skillful enough. So many bad
pennies come to the United States
Treasury that some of the Secret Ser
vice men are at work all the time look
ing for the men who make them.
THE hardest worked member of the
whole coin family is the penny" said
Superintendent huffman of the New
York Sub-Treasury the other day, as
wagon piled high with canvas bags Of
the copper coins. 1T is the errand boy
of the money world, and a remarkably
spry youngster, too, who covers lot
of ground in the course of year. 1t
is also pre-eminently the childen's
coin, though / dare say there are lot
of interesting things about it that
tboea uboca ctiokv fpoarc haln IN icon
it under motion do not know.
For instance, cents often come to us
at the rate of a million a day. The
Sub-Treasury is the clearing house of
these coins for the metropolitan dis
trict, and we handle an immense num-
Der of them in the course of the year.
That lot just coming in contains $1,000
worth and represents a days collec-
tions from a single big slot machine
company.
Perhaps before the day is over de-
livery truck from one of the great de-
partment stores will be down here af
ter $4,000 worth, 100000 pieces.
That often happens, and it shows the
way they come and go. Here" leading
the way to the room occupied by what
is known as the minor coin division,
you see the way we handle them"
The part of the room which held the
money was protected by railing of
heavy iron bars, and behind these bars
clerks were busily at woI.;., In one
corner, piled as high as the mems
heads, were the canvas bags, each
with it's 1000 coins, just as they were
brought in. On the opposite side were
three clerks busily counting off from
great heap of loose pennies.
Perhaps there are jO,000,000 one
cent pieces here now" continued the
Superintendent, possibly more. The
stock is growing now, has been since
the beginning of the year. That is 10
say, there are more people who have
pennies which they want to exchange |
for bills than there are who bring us
large denominations and get cents for |
them. The pennies are as good as cal
endars for us.
For several weeks before Christmas |
we didn't take in many; the children
were saving them up to buy presents.
All those that passed into the hands
of the candy man, toy dealers and other
about Dec. 10 are coming
back to us now. But they will go out
again by and by. Every fall when
school opens the pennies begin to come
in fast. The children are spending
more for candy and such things. Dur
ing the summer months they accumu-
late on our hands, for then the young
sters are not spending so many. When
ever there is a storm, a spell of bad
weather, or anything that keeps the
penny-spending population at home,we
can see the difference in the numbers
that come to us.
The craze for 49-cent and 00-cent
bargains requires great many pen
MES in the way of change, and ii is no
unusual thing for the big department
stores to take $4,000 worth at time.
Most of these come back to us by the
way Of the slot machines, which have
come to be wonderful in number and
variety.
There are kaleidoscope views, phono-
graphs, automatic music boxes, candy
and chewing gum sellers, weighing ma
chimes, lifting machines, and a hundred
md one others standing at every hand
and coaxing the pennies from their !
,wners' nockets The result of all THE ,