$2.49

I lived in Ottawa, Canada for about 2 years and made some good friends at the expense of constantly being harangued about how Canada is so much better than America. Sometimes the rhetoric that flew my way was deserved, but other times, it was how you say – retarded….

For example, it is a fact that many of our highways are littered with burned out mattresses and abandoned vehicles (especially around Detroit where I previously lived for many years). It’s also true that many of our national beers taste like water, but after you’ve had 6, who cares what they taste like? It's not exactly true that you can buy guns at a 7-11. Duhhh!! Every good American knows that if you want guns, you have to go to Safeway…

A simple comparison that I once heard (but wasn’t so sure about) had to do with the lowly penny. The claim was that the Canadian penny is worth more than the US penny because it contains more copper. I never saw any factual evidence to support this claim, so I tucked the tidbit away for future pondering. While making today’s smiley, I thought about the penny conversation again and decided to see what I could find on the internet in relation to copper content. Before reviewing the results, it’s worth noting that the copper content in both the US Penny and the Canadian Penny has varied greatly over the years.

Canucks
1858 – 1941 the Canadian Penny was at least 95% copper
1941 – 1982 the Canadian Penny was 98% copper
1997 – 1999 the Canadian Penny was a mere 1.6% copper
Today, the Canadian Penny is a whopping 4.5% copper (plating)

Yanks
1793 – 1836 the US Penny was 100% copper
1837 – 1856 the US Penny was bronze
1857 – 1863 the US Penny was 87.5% copper
1864 – 1942 the US Penney was bronze
In 1943 the US Penny was zinc plated steel
1944 – 1982 the US Penny was 95% copper
Today the US Penny is a scanty 2.5% copper

So there you have it, the Canucks were correct; since 1997 the Canadian Penny contains almost double the amount of copper as the US Penny.

Before today there was a time when I tossed my foreign pennies aside. To me, the Canadian penny didn't have enough weight and the look and feel said “I’m not worthy of your American pockets.” Then when you dropped it on the ground, it made a hollow clinking sound vs. the substantial tingling sound that a heavy American penny makes when it's dropped. Today I have a new found respect for the Canandian penny. Now that I know it contains nearly double the copper, I'll make sure that it never gets tossed aside again. Seriously, copper is currently selling for something like 12 cents an ounce and prior to 1997 (which isn't that long ago), the Canadian penny contained 98% copper. Perhaps I should go back and check the mint dates on Mr. Smiley’s smile. :)

Mr. Smiley’s Penny Content
Head: 178 US ting-a-ling Pennies
Eyes: 36 US Penny’s
Smile: 35 Canadian clink-a-dink Pennies.
Total: $2.49

Note: The copper content data listed above was lifted from Wikipedia