The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1902-08-24

it is not necessary to reckon the con-
tents.
The counters are so expert that il is
considered no great feat for q woman
| 10 reckon and do UP in bags or car
| trfdges $4,000 pieces in six hours. in
! ctdentally rejecting every counterfeit
| foreign or mutilated coin. There are.
I however, very few mutilated coins in
circulation nowadays, simply because
| people wifi not accept them. For this
reason 1T has ceased TO be popular
pastime to drive nails through pieces
| Of money or put them on railroad
! tracks.
When a 20-cent piece turns up it goes
to the melting pot. because Uncle sam
| is no longer minting or circulating that
! kind of money; and the same remark
applies to the nickel with a big V,
which was found dangerous because
when gilded it could be passed for a s.
I gold piece. Oid-fashfoned copper cents
! that come in are used for minting,new
/ bronze cents, with the addition of
/ some tin and zinc to make the requi-
site alloy, and the same thing is done
with the oId-time copper haff-cent,
! Cents are subject to more accidents
/ than any other coins Being of such
small value, very little care is taken
/ of them, and that is why the treasury
/ has to go on turning out new ones a [
| the rate of 60,oOO 900 TO 10000. 600 per
annum. Slot machines have greatly.
increased the demand for these small
: bronze coins, and so also have the
penny newspapers and the odd prices
made popular in dry goods shops
/ At the treasury they say that the
cent is a barometer OF business condi
| lions. A heavy storm or q sudden
coming of cold Weather-anything in
short, that keeps the penny-spending
: part of the population at homes ac-
curately reflected in the falling off of
the cents coming to the sub-treasuries
for exchange During periods of dull
ness cents accumulate at sub-treas-
uries. but when trade. revives they be-
gin to circulate rapidly again.
The stream of cOppers flows out con-
| tinually from the Philadelphia mint,
where all of them are made, but its
history is like that of many rivers in
the western deserts. which are lost
finally in the sand. Anybody who
wants cents may get them by sending
a check to the superintendent of the
mint, who viii ship them at the eX-
| pense of the government. Up to date
/ Uncle Sam has coined 1, 100, 000, 900 cents,
/ $40, O00, 600 nickels, 100, 900 900 dimes, 200-
100000 quarters and 15O,000,OOO half
dollars.
The silver coins that come into the
/ treasury are treated in exactly the
I same way as ulChElS ana cents All
WORKOUT pieces are melted for recoin-
| age, and on every $1,000 thus reminted
the government loses nearly $780,. The
| life of a dime is only four or five
! years, because, it changes hands ten
times for once that half-dollar is
moved from one persons pocket 10 an
| others.
Take ten silver dimes as you happen
to get them in change, pile them up.
with an equal number of brand new
| dimes alongside of them in another
| stack, and you will find that the pile
of old ones is hardly more than two
! thirds the height of the new pile-so
much do the pieces lose in thickness
after a short time.
Many years ago the government is
sued $500, 900 bronze 2-cent pieces, and
of these over 100000 are still out
standing. But nearly all of them are
certainly lost, inasmuch as it is very
rarely that they come in for redemp-
| ton. The same is true of the nickel
3-cent pieces. OF which nearly 1000, 900
are unaccounted for.
I Somewhere in the world are 119, 000-
900 big copper pennies. But it would
be hard to find any of them, barring
| few in the hands of collectors. What
has become of them is a mystery; and
the same may be said of the old half
cents. corresponding in value to the
English farthings. Of these latter
SOC. 900 were rninted, and none has been
returned for recoinage or is held by
the treasury. Save for a few in the
possession of curio hunters, they have
vanished from the earth.