Penny ? Question - Coin Community Forum

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Author	Replies: 4 / Views: 1,009
rggoodie Moderator United States 23519 Posts	Posted 06/19/2006 08:14 am Will one of you Lincoln collectors please explain to me why the American One Cent coin is always referred to as a "Penny" The Australians have a Penny coin - Predecimal as did the British. But in all my reference books I can not find an American Penny Even the Red Book list Half Cents, large cents, small cents, then moves on to two & Three Cent pieces, but alas NO Pennys Is it just a throw back to Colonial times or is it just easier to say Penny than once cent coin or cent. rggoodie aka Richard "catch em doing something right" Report this Post to the Staff

TLS5933 Pillar of the Community United States 1703 Posts	Posted 06/19/2006 09:05 am Richard, I'm not positive but I believe it was a carry over from when they colonized America. They were still using English coins. The Half-Pence was also called half-penny and pence,penny. Report this Post to the Staff
Buffaloboy5 Pillar of the Community United States 604 Posts	Posted 06/19/2006 7:39 pm Roodggie Americans call them pennys because it apeals to them Report this Post to the Staff
Sap Moderator Australia 16830 Posts	Posted 06/19/2006 9:31 pm I concur with TLS; it seems to be a holdover from America's predecimal days. The Wikipedia article on "Penny" has this to say: * a standard but unofficial name for the one-cent coin in the United States and in Canada, worth 1/100 of the dollar: see penny (U.S. coin), penny (Canadian coin). Note that this word is not officially used by the United States Mint or the Royal Canadian Mint; they use cent. In the USA and Canada, "penny" is normally used to refer to the coin; the quantity of money is a "cent". Elsewhere in the English-speaking world, the plural of "penny" is "pence" when referring to a quantity of money and "pennies" when referring to a number of coins. Thus a coin worth five times as much as one penny is worth five pence, but "five pennies" means five coins each of which is a penny. In Canada, penny originally referred to pence coinage that they used until 1859 since there was a coin with the word "penny" on it (for pence). Since this was a term that they used for many years, the One Cent denomination stayed with the penny nickname ever since. The Royal Canadian Mint and the Federal Government of Canada don't officially call the One Cent coin a penny but a "One Cent" coin. These days, it's simply habit. You see the word "cent" and say "penny". The habit seems to work the other way too. Time and time again I hear American collectors talk about "British cents" or "Australian large cents". In this case, you seem to be seeing the word "penny" and saying "cent". Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis Report this Post to the Staff
kcvet67 New Member United States 17 Posts	Posted 06/19/2006 9:35 pm I think the new government chose the name "cent" rather than "penny" to demonstrate their freedom from everything English. But people tend to keep using familiar terms so the name "penny" stuck with us. SERIOUS "cent" collectors (the kind who never smile) will scream at the top of their lungs that there is no such thing, but most of us use the word "pennies" in ordinary conversation. Report this Post to the Staff
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