Flash forward to later this year, after the Royal Canadian Mint has stopped distributing pennies to banks.
Flash forward even further down the road to when the little copper coin is no longer an everyday nuisance in weighing down change purses.
Something to get excited about?
Not so much, said John Elves, owner of Red Deer Stamps and Coins.
“It was inevitable. Many other countries have already done it. New Zealand’s already phased out it’s 5-cent coin too. And it works fine there,” said Elves.
“You can’t buy anything with pennies and they’re costing the government — so it is kind of silly to keep making them.”
In the federal budget, delivered on March 29, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty declared the penny would be dropped from circulation later this year.
This would save Canada about $11-million. Turns out, the little one cent metal was costing about 1.6 cents to produce.
“I think it’s long overdue, especially in the era of electronic payments,” said Maureen McMurtrie, president of the Red Deer Chamber of Commerce.
“Though it will be some time before we start to notice they’re not being produced anymore . . . There’s still $1 and $2 bills coming into the banks after all.”
As for coin collectors, the demise of the penny won’t be causing ripples in the future either, noted Elves.
When the $1 bill went out of circulation in 1989, it didn’t affect paper bill collectors at all, he said.
In fact Elves has a common $1 bill on display in his store downtown Red Deer.
It’s been there for years he said, and garners little interest from customers.
According to Elves it’s maybe worth about $2 now, almost a quarter of a century later, which doesn’t say much for a predicted value of pennies 25 years down the road.
“The pennies that are scare will always be scare, like this one I have from 1858 which was the first Canadian penny,” said Elves.
“And the ones that are common like the ones in my change drawer will always be common.”
The death march of the penny over the next year will affect local businesses however, said McMurtrie.
“Adjustments in retail and whatnot will have to be made. Prices will have to be rounded up to the nearest 5 cent so there will be some costs involved, new signage and such.”
Melting down the pennies isn’t a very good option to getting ride of them, noted Elves, as they’re not made of solid copper but of a steel core with only a thin plating of copper.
Over at the Red Deer and District SPCA animal shelter, the Pennies for Paws program has been going on since 1996.
It begun when local businessman Don Hollman collected 25,722 pennies that people had left behind. The program aims to show that all things have value and the donated change goes towards helping with the organization’s operating costs.
“We might change the name of the program down the road,” said SPCA employee Eileen van Der Dussen.
“But we definitely plan on continuing with it.”
The program might be even more popular, with pennies no longer in use, said van Der Dussen.
Donating pennies to charity is one way to get rid of them, said Elves. He also recommends collecting a penny from each year.
“Every kid in the world starts a penny collection . . . I know I did. And some grow up and want to finish it,” he said.
rfrancoeur@www.reddeeradvocate.com