‘Honest Abe’ coin costs a pretty penny

TEXT OF FINAL NOTE

Bob Moon: Time to cash it in, I guess. But let me just throw my two cents in on this. I read this week that so many people have been scraping up all the spare change they’ve accumulated, bank vaults around the country are brim full of pennies. Seems in these hard times a lot of Americans are pinching every cent they can find.

[Music: Louis Prima singing “Pennies from Heaven:” “Every time it rains, it rains / Pennies from heaven / Shoobie-doobie / Don’t you know each cloud contains / Pennies from heaven / Shoobie-doobie.”]

The flip-side of the coin is, it seems casual collectors are having a devil of a time finding many of the freshly minted “Lincoln Bicentennial” pennies being released this year. That’s apparently because the banks have no need to order and circulate many new pennies.

If you’ve just got to have some of those new “Honest Abe” pennies, you can order some directly from the U.S. Mint. But it’ll cost you, yup, a pretty penny — $8.95 for two rolls for 50 cents. Oh, plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Such a deal.

[Music: Louis Prima . . . “There’ll be pennies from heaven / For you and me.”]