A penny is a coin (pl. pennies) or a type of currency (pl. pence) used in several English-speaking countries. It is often the smallest denomination within a currency system.

Etymology

Old English versions of the word penny are ''penig'', ''pening'', ''penning'' and ''pending''; the word appears in German as ''Pfennig,'' in Dutch and Swedish (often shortened to ''peng'') as ''penning,'' and in West Frisian as ''peinje'' or ''penje''. In Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish, the most common words for ''money'' are ''pengar'', ''penger'' and ''pænge'' respectively. These words are thought by some to have common roots with the English word "pawn", German , and Dutch , words which mean "a pledge or token".

Origin and history of development

The silver penny of medieval Europe was modeled on similar small silver coins from antiquity: the Greek drachma and Roman Denarius. There are also archeology exibitions that show traces of pennies in Sweden and Norway. Researchers believe that this might be the result of Viking influence in northern Europe.

When Britain was under Roman rule, most of Britain used the coin-based monetary system that was used by the Roman Empire, but their system of coinage soon changed after the Romans left. As the invading Anglo-Saxons began to settle and establish their own kingdoms, some started to make gold coins based on the old Roman designs or designs copied from the coins used in the Frankish kingdoms. Their monetary system had several serious flaws: first, gold was so valuable, that even the smallest coins were very valuable, thus, these gold coins would only be used in large transactions. Further, gold was very rare, and this rarity prevented such coins from being common enough to use for even large transactions.

Between the years 641 and 670 AD, there seems to have been a movement by the Anglo-Saxons to use less pure gold in coins. This made the coins appear paler, decreased their value, and may have increased the number that could be made, but it still did not solve the problems of value and scarcity of coins made mostly of gold.

Sceattas

Around the year 680 a new type of small silver coin appeared which some have identified as "sceattas" or "sceat". Others suggest that sceatta was a specific measurement of a precious metal.

First pennies

Through the end of the 7th century, no Anglo-Saxon coins had been minted in any metal besides gold.

In Northumbria, pennies made of silver were being minted in the name of Bishop Eadbert (consecrated between 772 and 782, died between 787 and 789), some in the name of his brother Archbishop Egbert (the shilling is one of the oldest of English coins, preceding the penny).

Pepin the Short, in about 735, minted the novus denarius. The novus denarius was based on the denarius and the penny was based on the novus denarius. He declared that 240 pennies or pfennigs should be minted from one Carolingian pound, approximately , of silver, so a single coin contained about of silver. (As of December 2011, this would cost about £0.98).

Circa 790 Charlemagne instituted a major monetary reform, introducing a new silver penny with a smaller diameter but greater mass. Surviving examples of this penny have an average mass of 1.70 gram (although some experts estimate the ideal theoretical mass at 1.76 gram). The purity is variously given as 0.95 or 0.96.

The penny was introduced into England by King Offa, the king of Mercia (from 757 until his death in July 796), using as a model a coin first struck by Pepin the Short. King Offa minted a penny made of silver which weighed 22 grains or 240 pennies weighing one Saxon pound (or Tower pound—equal to 5,400 grains—as it was afterwards called), hence the term pennyweight.

The coinage of Offa's lifetime falls essentially into two phases, one of the light pennies of medium flan comparable to those of the reign of Pepin and the first decades of that of Charlemagne in France, and another of heavier pennies struck on larger flans that date from Offa's last years and correspond in size to Charlemagne's novus denarius introduced in 793/4. But the sceat fabric survived in East Anglia under Beonna and until the mid 9th century in Northumbria, while the new-style coinages were not merely those of Offa, but were stuck also by king of East Anglia, Kent, and Wessex, by two archbishops of Canterbury, and even in the name of Offa's queen, Cynethryth.

Henry III in 1257 minted a gold penny which had the value of twenty silver pence. The weight and value of the silver penny steadily declined from 1300 onwards.

The penny, with a few exceptions, was the only coin issued in England until the introduction of the gold florin by Edward III in 1343.

In 1527 the Tower pound of 5,400 grains was abolished and replaced by the Troy pound of 5,760 grains.

Halfpence and farthings became a regular part of the coinage at that time, money which was created by cutting pennies to halves and quarters for trade purposes, a practice said to have originated in the reign of Æthelred II.

The last coinage of silver pence for general circulation was in the reign of Charles II. Since then silver pence have only been coined for issue as royal alms on Maundy Thursdays.

First use of copper

Pennies were made of copper in the United States of America as early as 1793 (Chain Cent).

The penny that was brought to the Cape Colony was a large coin—41 mm in diameter, 5 mm thick and . On it was Britannia with a trident in her hand. The English called this coin the Cartwheel penny due to its large size and raised rim, but the Capetonians referred to it as the Devil's Penny as they assumed that only the Devil used a trident. The coins were very unpopular due to their large weight and size.

The first copper coins that Boulton minted for the British Government are known as 'cartwheels', because of their large size and raised rims. The Soho Mint struck of these penny and twopenny pieces in 1797, and issued further copper coins for the Government in 1799, 1806 and 1807. All together the Mint produced over £600,000 worth of copper official English coinage as well as separate copper coins for Ireland and the Isle of Man.

On 6 June 1825 Sir Charles Somerset issued a proclamation that only British Sterling would be legal tender in the Cape. The new British coins (which were introduced in England in 1816), among them being the shilling, six pence of silver, the penny, half penny and quarter penny in copper, were introduced to the Cape. Later two shilling, four penny and three penny coins were added to the coinage. The size and denomination of the 1816 British coins, with the exception of the four-penny coins, were used in South Africa until 1960.

Use of bronze

In 1860 in Britain bronze pennies were introduced in place of copper ones, though they were not entirely made of bronze; instead it was an alloy containing 95 parts of copper, 4 of tin, and 1 of zinc. The weight was also reduced: 1 lb of bronze was coined into 48 pennies, versus 1 lb of copper which was coined into 24 pennies.

Value

The penny is among the lowest denomination of coins in circulation. of the British pound sterling (''see British one penny coin''), the Manx pound, the former Irish pound, the Gibraltar pound, the Jersey Pound, the Guernsey Pound, the Saint Helena pound, the Falkland Islands pound, or a coin with that value: see History of the English penny. of the British pound sterling or Irish pound before decimalisation on 15 February 1971, of the Pound Scots prior to 1707, and also the pre-decimalisation currencies of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa ( of the shilling), or a coin of that value. A common colloquial name for the one-cent coin in the United States and in Canada, worth of the dollar: see Penny (U.S. coin), Penny (Canadian coin).

In addition, variants of the word ''penny'', with which they share a common root, are or were the names of certain units of currency in non-English-speaking countries: A fening is of a Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark A Pfennig was of a German Mark and is sometimes still used by Germans as the name for the 1c coin of the Euro A penni was of a Finnish markka

In the United States and Canada, "penny" is normally used to refer to 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.

When dealing with British or Irish (pound) money, amounts of the decimal "new pence" less than £1 may be suffixed with "p", as in 2p, 5p, 26p, 72p. Pre-1971 amounts of less than 1/- (one shilling) were denoted with a "d" which derived from the term "denarius", as in 2d, 6d, 10d.

Irish pound decimal coinage only used "p" to designate units (possibly as this sufficed for both the English word "pence", and Irish form "pingin").

Criticism

Handling and counting penny coins makes transaction costs that may be higher than a penny. It has been claimed that for micropayments the mental arithmetic costs more than the penny. Australia and New Zealand now use 5¢ and 10¢, respectively, as their lowest denomination, with Canada set to follow suit as per the most recent Federal budget.

Changes in the price of metal commodity, combined with the continual debasement of paper currencies, causes the metal value of pennies to exceed their face value. Several nations have stopped minting equivalent value coins, and efforts have been made to end the routine use of pennies in several countries, including Canada and the United States. In the UK, since 1992, one- and two-penny coins have been made from copper-plated steel (making them magnetic) instead of bronze.

Idioms

To ''"spend a penny"'' in British idiom means to urinate. The etymology of the phrase is literal; some public toilets used to be coin-operated, with a pre-decimal penny being the charge levied. The first recorded charge of a penny for use of a toilet was at the The Great Exhibition of 1851. Eventually, around the same time as the introduction of decimal coinage, British Rail gradually introduced better public toilets with the name ''Superloo'' and the much higher charge of 6d (2p).

Finding a penny is sometimes considered lucky and gives rise to the saying, "Find a penny, pick it up, and all the day you'll have good luck." This may be a corruption of "See a pin and pick it up, all the day you'll have good luck" and similar verses, as quoted in The Frank C. Brown collection of North Carolina folklore and other places.

It is also believed that one may get rid of bad luck by dropping a penny on the ground. The bad luck will go with the coin and be acquired by the next person to pick it up.

List of pennies

Australian penny

British penny

* British penny (pre-decimal)

Canadian penny

Irish penny

* Irish penny (pre-decimal)

U.S. penny

See also

Coins of the pound sterling

Efforts to eliminate the penny in the United States

History of the English penny (c. 600 – 1066)

Legal Tender Modernization Act

One cent (disambiguation)

Penny sizes of nails

Pennyweight

Pfennig

Smashed penny

Prutah

References

External links

The MegaPenny Project - A visualisation of what exponential numbers of pennies would look like.

Silver Pennies - Pictures of English silver pennies from Anglo-Saxon times to the present.

Copper Pennies - Pictures of English copper pennies from 1797 to 1860.

Category:Coins Category:Luck

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Tom Penny (born April 13, 1977) is a professional skateboarder from Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England. He is well known in the skateboarding community for his calm style and natural abilities and as a master of frontside flips and many kickflip variations. He is also known as one of the few talents to avoid the trappings of skateboarding fame.

Career

Tom was first spotted and sponsored by Sean Goff, ex pro skater and owner of SS20 skateshop in Oxford, England. He gained coverage in UK skate magazines such as RAD and Skateboard, as well as videos such as Rollersnakes 540 and 720, and was soon spotted by Flip Skateboards owner Jeremy Fox and added to the Deathbox Skateboards team, which later combined with Bash Skateboards and re branded into Flip Skateboards.

Around 1993, Tom made his first International video appearance in 411vm's video Issue 2 Wheels of Fortune at the age of 15, where he was filmed skating at the Radlands Skatepark in Northampton, England. He also made his debut at the UK Championships Contest at Radlands, where he came 3rd in a very high calibre field of US, UK and European pros. US pro Willy Santos won the contest.

Tom was back at Radlands in 1994 for the UK Championships again. This year a small group of US pros, seemingly lead by Mike Carroll, were openly heckling Tom for his unique style, maybe through jealousy as Tom was fast overtaking them and taking skateboarding to a completely new level . Tom brushed this aside in his casual manner and although not skating as well as in practise still finished in 6th place. US pro Mike Santarossa won the contest.

In late 1994 Flip Skateboards left UK shores and moved to Huntington Beach, California, the hub of world skateboarding. Along with other team members Geoff Rowley, Andy Scott and Rune Glifberg, Tom took the skateboard world by storm, amazing viewers with his small part in the Flip Skateboards industry section in 411vm number 11, switch frontside flipping the infamous Carlsbad Gap and doing an amazing 5 trick downhill run without pushing or speed checking, ending in a backside tailslide on a 9 stair rail, only the second time this trick had been caught on video and the first time in a run. All of this done in an amazing smooth style that looked like he wasn't even trying.

Back in the UK, Tom ended up winning the 1995 Radlands UK Championships Contest which had by then evolved into one of the world's biggest contests. He beat over 100 other competitors including over 75 top US pros, such as Ray Barbee, Tony Hawk, Bob Burnquist, Andrew Reynolds, Ed Templeton, Eric Koston, Phil Shao (now deceased), and Jamie Thomas. His winning run is regarded as one of the best contest runs in history , and clearly cemented his place right in the upper ranks of Pro Skateboarding, quickly achieving legendary status . After the previous year's heckling, the skateboard world had now embraced Penny as the skater to lead it into a new generation where style came before anything else . By the end of 1995 Penny was widely regarded as the best all round skateboarder in the world , and received acclaim from such notable people as Tony Hawk who was quoted saying to other Vert pros at a contest "If Tom Penny ever started skating Vert full time, we all might as well retire".

During his time in the US, Tom had video parts in the mid 90's such as Etnies "Hi-Five" video, Transworld Skateboarding "Uno", TSA's "Life in the Fast Lane", Balance in the World of Chaos, Dope Clothing's "Time for Tea" as well as numerous cameos in 411vm including the "Europe 1995" video. Tom could easily steal a whole video with just one or two tricks .

In 1997 after being at the very top of the Skateboarding world for only 3 or 4 years but having had enough of the spotlight and pro scene, he left California for good and went to Europe, keeping a low profile. He was living in Saint Victor, France for many years with his mother at their holiday home, with time also spent in Barcelona, Spain . Rumour has it he got heavily into hard drugs and lost a few steps, but he made occasional appearances in France and Spain in the late 1990s and thereafter .

During the early years of the new Millennium, Tom reappeared and made his comeback in Flip Skateboards classic videos, Sorry, Really Sorry & most recently Extremely Sorry.

After living in Buenos Aires, Argentina for a few years with his partner and young son, Tom is now back in Europe, based in Barcelona, and in the last few months has been seen in The UK, Holland, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, and France.

In fact there have been more sightings of Penny in 2011 than at any other time since the mid 1990's.

Personal life

He was also famous for putting his stamp on a series of graphics used on skateboard decks and consequentially, t-shirts and hoodies. Tom Penny's graphics for Flip contained numerous drug references, while specifically extolling the virtues of psychedelic mushrooms and smoking Pot. His Cheech and Chong, Alice and Wonderland, and Mushroom related graphic skateboards decks and clothing were a huge sale in the 90's, especially among younger rebellious kids who were drawn to the memorabilia because of its controversial subject matter .

His partner is an Argentinian woman Veronica, and they have a son, Nicholas, born in April 2003 .

Sponsors

Flip Skateboards

Supra Footwear

KR3W

Ricta wheels

Fury Trucks

Mob Griptape

Videography

411 Video Magazine Issue 2 - Wheels of Fortune (1993)

Etnies- Hi-5 (1995)

Transworld Skateboarding - Uno (1996)

Dope Clothing - Time for Tea (1996)

TSA - Life in the Fast Lane (1996)

Transworld Skateboarding - Anthology (2000)

És Shoes - Menikmati (2002)

Flip Skateboards - Feast tour

Flip Skateboards - Sorry (2002)

Flip Skateboards - Really Sorry (2003)

Flip Skateboards - Extremely Sorry (2009)

Skate Sauce - Hard Times But Good Times (2012)

External links

Tom Penny Subpublic Profile

Tom Penny Lodown Mag Interview

Tom Penny Big Brother Magazine interview

Tom Penny S.P.O.T profile

Tom Penny Skately Library

The Church Of Tom Penny

The Artistry Of Tom Penny

Tom Penny Junkyard Video Interview 2011

Tom Penny Facebook Fan Page

Flip Skateboards

Category:1977 births Category:Living people Category:English skateboarders Category:People from South Oxfordshire (district)

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