The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-04-10
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HAsKIN. Director.
Washington, d. G.
THE SMALL COIN BOOM.

small coins as it used half a decade
ago. 1t would not be a great surprise
to discover an increase of 10 per cent
! or 25 per cent in the use of nickels,
dimes and pennies: but the fact that
/ their use has been multiplied by half
/ a hundred is hard to account for.
The facts with relation to the use
of pennies are obtainable at the treas
! ury department in Washington. 1t is
to the treasury that the public comes
FLOR its COIN. People doing business
that requires the making of change
apply to their banks for pennies. nick
els, dimes and quarters. The banks.
that they may furnish this subsidiary
treasury, for enough of it to keep their
| stock up to the demand. The treas
ury, always responsive to demand.
keeps enough of it minted TO meet all
calls.
The records of the treasury show
that for eight years, including 1903
1915. the banks asked for and received
31,00O,000 pennies. This was four
million year
| 1t is in comparison with this pigmy
! figure that the record of the last few
months is so surprising. Since last
/ July the public has been demanding
and receiving about 100000 pennies
a month. 1t has been using fifteen
| times as many of them in a month as
it formerly used in a year.
4
! The chief agency that has led to this
prodigious use of pennies is the reve-
nue. act of a year ago, supplemented by
| that modern entertainment the motion
picture show. The tax on admissions
| to these entertainments required the
breaking down of the final nickel in
| change nearly every time any man.
woman or child bought ticket to a
movie. Then there were similar taxes
| to be paid when one bought soft
! drinks, cigarS-any of these articles
which, under the law, were luxuries.
The newspapers of the nation have
doubled in price, requiring more pen
MES to handle the business. Street
/ car fares, for a generation SO univer-
sally five cents each, haye found a
| level in most cities between five and
| ten and this again breaks up a nickel
and necessitates the use of pennies
| The resulting penny boom has been
most remarkable.
New and interesting situations have
developed as a result. There used to
! be third of the United States, from
| the standpoint of area, which insisted
on ignoring the existence of the penny
Beyond the Great Plains ant open
| handed citizenship refused to have
anything to do with change smaller
than the nickel. But the present rev.
enue law has made the use of pennies
unavoidable in the west. The picture
shows. the drug stores, the collectors
of luxury taxes out west have been re-
| quired to split the nickels just as is
done on the Atlantic seaboard. The
penny has been forced into general
use in the Rockies and beyond for the
first time.
A Mountain of Pennies.
| 1t is interesting to take the meas
ure of this penny flood that is sweep
| ing over the land. 1t takes 120 PEN
mics to weigh a pound On this basis,
a months coinage of 100000 PEN
MES would weigh 100000 pounds.
This would load 125 big drays. To
! haul a years output of pennies would
require a train of freight cars half a
mile long. There is not railroad en-
CINE in the world that could pull it up
a per cent grade.
Pennies are 95 per cent copper and
) per cent tin and zinc. which latter
materials decrease their tendency to
corrode. A pound of the resulting al
10y costs about Is cents. and the coin
is valued at $1.20.
Tho the pennies register the big in
crease in small coins used, there has
also been a larger demand for nickels.
| Before the appearance of the unusual
| conditions that have grown out of the
war the country consumed about u.s.
900, 600 nickels a year. That number
| has recently increased to about 1907
600, 900.
This develops another neat task in
manufacture for the government.
/ When one gets behind the scenes at
the treasury it develops that a nickel
| is not a nickel at all, or at any rate,
is but one-fourth nickel. This coin is
largely the same material as the
penny. 1t is rs per cent copper. To
| the copper is added 25 per cent nickel.
which hardens the metal and domi-
mates it in appearance; The treasury
| takes a quarters worth of this alloy,
puts the stamp of the government on
it and turns cut four dollars worth of
the coin of the realm.
/ It takes seventy-five nickels to
weigh a pound. A hundred-pound
would be worth 1915. The nickels
that the nation uses in a year would
Require more than $4,000 such bags
and it would take 166 four-ton trucks
to transport them.
| In those ten years before 1915 the
United States had turned out silver
subsidiary coin at the rate of about
ten million dollars a year. For the
past three years the demand has been
around twenty-five million a year, and
this year it promises to reach thirty
million.
Lost Money.
One strange feature in this manu-
! facture of small coin is the fact that
a constant flood of it is kept going,
out. is being poured into the pockets
of the people, and almost none of it
ever comes back. This is particularly
true of pennies The larger and more
valuable coins come back to the treas
Jury for redemption but not the pen
MES. It is supposed that people are
careless with pennies and that they
are lost. So great is the quantity OF
them that it would seem, if this thing
goes on indefinitely. the ground
would eventually become covered with
them. There must be millions of lost