I love this article. My thoughts for a long time now are that the Treasury is making -- not losing -- a small fortune because citizens don't spend pennies. Personally I greatly dislike them. A great many of us put them into jars, put them in bags, completely toss them out (drop 'em into wastebaskets), and squirrel them away never to be seen again. After years of inflation they're of little use, even stamps are going up routinely in increments of pennies.

My feeling is that both pennies and nickels should be dumped; pennies should have been dropped years ago. These coins are completely inefficient in handling and transportation, probably helped drive the move to electronic highway toll-collecting.

Here's an interesting fundraising event using pennies if you're interested: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22201606/.

-bbq