By Nirmala Menon
It’s time to bid a farewell–of sorts–to the penny. The Royal Canadian Mint will stop distributing the one-cent coin on Monday, more than 150 years after Canada’s first penny was produced in 1858. The last penny was struck in May 2012, after the Canadian government decided to cease production of the coin as a cost-saving measure.
Pennies will continue to remain legal tender, and can be used for cash transactions “indefinitely,” the Mint says, with those businesses “that choose to to accept them.” But the Mint adds that, starting Monday, businesses should start rounding amounts for transactions made in cash.
Some fun facts about the Canadian penny, courtesy of the Mint.
–At 2.35 grams, a penny weighs about the same as a hummingbird.
–35 billion pennies have been minted since 1908, and the total weight of all those coins (103,617 tons) is almost double that of the Titanic.
–If all those pennies are stacked up, the height (52,600 kilometers) is the equivalent of about 100,000 CN Towers, the iconic edifice in Toronto.
–If placed side by side, all those Canadian pennies would circle the earth 16 times
–The Dot, a one-cent coin produced in 1936, is Canada’s most valuable penny. Only three are known to exist, and one of them sold for $402,500 at a New York auction in 2010.
For more on the penny look here.