Last week I was called a friend just to chat and the opening line I used was, “HI, what’s new.” “I’m sorting pennies while I still can. I haven’t found any good ones yet.” This was actually the second time in a few months our conversation started thus. Thusly? Started like that.

Last weeks news that the US Mint is officially out of the penny minting business has people across the country breaking into piggy banks looking for elusive billion dollar pennies.

Way way way back, I wrote a post about a someone who paid $1.38 million dollars for a penny. People complain when scalpers ticket brokers charge more than face value for tickets. Nobody said anything about the guy who paid $1,379,999.99 over face for a penny. Okay, so it was minted in 1793, but it’s still just a penny, right?

The chance of you pulling another 1793 penny from your safe deposit piglet is so rare it ain’t gonna happen. The chance off pulling an illusive 1943 or 1943-D penny worth a paltry $1.00 million is close too it ain’t gonna happen either. But digging up a pre-1982 penny is possible. Not probable but possible. In theory, a pre-1982 penny, thanks to its near (95%) all copper makeup, is worth at least three cents.

But is it? Copper is currently trading at about $.01 per gram, those older pennies weigh 3 grams, so they contain about three times their face value in copper metal. Except they aren’t worth 3 cents because as legal tender, it is illegal to melt down coins for their metal weight value.

It has been said the value of any object is how much somebody is willing to pay for it, yet its worth is how much somebody wants for it. Rarely are worth and value equal. If our collections actually cost what we feel they are worth, they would far exceed most people’s ability to pay for them, thus lowering their value. But it is because we place such worth on these objects that give us so much joy that they are so valuable to us. Even pennies.

Was my friend searching for that million dollar treasure or a handful of three penny pennies? Turns out neither was to be found so it didn’t really matter other than it made for a pleasant conversation and a not so worthless blog post. Or maybe that would be a priceless post.