Canadian penny

• The pennies produced each year by the Royal Canadian Mint, when laid end-to-end, would go from St. John’s, N.L., to Victoria and back.
• Producing those pennies — necessary after people tuck them away in the piggy bank — is estimated to cost $130 million a year.
• Pennies cost retail businesses about $60 million a year to record, store and transport, plus time spent by cashiers per transaction.
• The penny buys 1/20th what it bought in 1908.
• Until 1996, pennies were anywhere from 95 to 98 per cent copper. They are now 94 per cent steel, 1.5 per cent nickel, and 4.5 per cent copper-plated zinc.
• From 1876 to 1920, Canadian pennies were 25.4 mm in diameter and weighed 5.67 g; current pennies weigh 2.35 g and are 19.05 mm round.
• Thirty-seven per cent of Canadians say they regularly use pennies to pay for goods.
• If all the pennies minted since 1908 were stacked on top of each other, they would go 49,000 kilometres into space.

Via Vancouver Sun