I was walking down the sidewalk when, despite it being winter, I spotted a coin just sitting there on the ground.
I bent to pick it up and was surprised that it was a penny. A lucky penny for sure because you don’t see many now, especially in winter. How it got there, I do not know but it was now my lucky penny and my lucky day.
It may be, as some people say, just an old superstition, but it’s fun to consider that an old metal disc could bring someone luck. Probably made of copper and nickel, some metals and minerals do have some weird and unexpected powers. Luck may be one of them.
I remember back in the 1950s, a shoe called the Penny Loafer was a hot item and most of the cool kids had them with a little slot on the front holding a penny. Having a penny in your shoe was at one time considered a sure-fire path to good luck. Just wishing for luck can be a little tricky because if there is good luck presumably there is bad luck.
Now, I know some people are going to scoff and say that a penny certainly isn’t worth much. The government stopped making them on Feb. 4, 2013, and many people threw their pennies away. So they are getting to be a little rare and kids are now growing up who may never have seen a penny and have no idea what they are worth.
In 1522, a fellow wrote a book and coined the phrase we still use today: “A penny for your thoughts.” Since there are a hundred pennies in a dollar, it may sound like they didn’t put much value on thoughts, but a penny was worth a whole lot more back then. Someone doing a little research discovered that in 1522, in jolly old England a penny would buy you three loaves of bread. Not the cheap mass-produced bread one buys at the supermarket wrapped in a plastic bag, but real handmade delicious crusty loaves baked in a wood-fired oven and still warm they were so fresh. So, your thoughts might be worth more than you think!
Not only was a penny worth a whole lot more back then but they were a whole lot harder to come by if you were in what were called the lower classes, such as peasants, or serfs. There were a lot of people who were homeless and hungry, and there was a never-ending cycle of wars, raids, rebellions and plagues. Pretty much like the world today.
The penny you find might be worth more than you think as well. To start with, it’s a historic artifact from the past. I can remember people sorting out the older copper pennies, drilling holes in them and using them as copper washers, which if you bought them from the store cost more than a penny a piece. In fact, some people collected and hoarded pennies and then sold them to the scrap metal dealers for their copper. The government stopped making them with copper, which cost more than the penny was worth. History is full of little fun facts like that and if history is anything to go by, sooner or later the government will do away with nickels, dimes and even quarters.
I know people don’t bother picking up discarded pennies anymore, but they still contain a little luck. Imagine if you found a 1953 penny worth $5,000 or a rare 1936 dot penny like the one that sold at auction for over $400,000. That would certainly qualify as an extremely lucky penny and a lucky day.
When you stop to think about it, the whole concept of money is kind of an abstract thought. The penny I found is worth maybe 1.5 cents but if it had been one from 1936 it could have been worth $400,000, assuming you didn’t drill a hole in it to make a copper washer worth maybe five cents. Ah yes, a penny saved is indeed a penny earned.