laura (12/09/82)
The Canadian government has been complaining that the real value of the penny is now far more than $0.01 for many years now. Their solution was to make the penny smaller in diameter. Before they could implement this new idea there was a horrible squawk from the Toronto Transit Commission - (The bus & subway company). It seems that the new government pennies are exactly the right size to be accepted by the automatic token turnstiles and that it would cost 6 million+ to renovate the new equipment. I know that Bermuda dimes (or whatever they are called) get you a $0.70 ride for $0.10, so it seems a legitimite concern. I think that this may be the solution to the octagonal 82 pennies... laura creighton decvax!utzoo!laura
rew (12/10/82)
Trinidad pennies turn out to be almost exactly the same size as US (and I believe, but less certainly, Canadian) dimes. NYC pay phones in certain neighborhoods yield about 80% Trinidad pennies in their collection boxes. Bob Warren cbosgd!nscs!rew