Time the 'coppers' finally went?

[Peckris 579]

I would really really hate to lose the notion of the 'penny' - it has a long and honourable history going back to Saxon, if not Roman, times. It, not the pound, is what the British coinage has always been built around. There's such a romantic association to it.

But, isn't it time we got rid of our base metal coins altogether? Here are some interesting facts:

- when 1961 dawned, the lowest value coin was still - briefly - the farthing

- by 1971, a mere 10 years later, we'd lost both it and the halfpenny, and the lowest value coin was the 1/2p, worth nearly 5 times the old farthing

- by 1984, not even 25 years on, the lowest value was the new penny, worth nearly 10 times what a farthing was.

Yet here we are, almost 30 years after the 1/2p went, and the lowest value coin is STILL the penny. I very much doubt, given inflation, that our humble 1p could even match the 1961 farthing's purchasing power. I say, let's get rid of those useless 'coppers' and make the 5p the lowest value coin - it is, after all, approximately the size of the old 1/2p. And to avoid rip-off merchants, legislation would enforce the rounding UP of any item that's closer to the higher multiple of 5 (e.g. 13p 14p, 18p 19p), but the rounding DOWN of any item closer to the lower multiple (11p 12p, 16p 17p etc).

As I say, I'd hate to lose the penny, but I'd not mourn the loss of those almost valueless coppers. The penny would survive in the Maundy, and in years to come, there could be other ways to revive the name too.

[Generic Lad 25]

I think its really sad that the west has adopted such a silly, inflationary monetary policy that makes discontinuing a coin make sense.

Personally, I like the US penny, cheap to hoard the pre-1982 95% coppers and with enough searching you can find 100+ year old wheats and even older Indian heads with some searching.

I'd just like to see a return of circulating gold and silver coins...