A Penny for your Dollars

Today's Link
Trav's Thoughts

Saying for the Day
Gambling: The sure way of getting nothing from something. ~Wilson Mizner

Picture of the Day
But Tomorrow more Snow

We may be on the edge of the next great depression but the American entrepreneurial ability to make a dollar out of a pennie is still alive and kicking.
The mint is in the process of minting five new pennies. Two will be minted this year. Two will be minted next year . One will be minted the year after. They are in honor of the Lincoln bicentennial. When they are put into circulation they will be worth one cent.
That’s the base cost for our entrepreneurs. You add to that five cents for plastic to encase them in and ten cents for a page that gives a little history and you can sell the whole thing for twenty dollars plus postage and handling.
I have done some research and the selling price can be as low as $12.95 and as high as $30.00 for one penny. And don’t forget the postage and handling. Some of these places handle it a lot and the cost can be as much as $7.95.
Their advertisements on television , in newspapers, and in mailings urge you to get in now before they are all gone.
“Before they are all gone”, they haven’t even been minted yet. When they are you should be able to pick up one in uncirculated ( Encased in plastic) at your local bank for $5.00 if the centennial quarters are any indication. Thus for $25.00 the entire set can be yours. You see there is no need to get involved in any kind of fracas to obtain them. Better yet talk to your bank or credit union and buy a roll when they arrive. It will cost you $.50 and they are all uncirculated. Then buy some cheap plastic holders and you have a bunch of $12.95 coins minus the postage and handling.
Of course our sellers know this so to further entice you they offer the coins gold platted for just a little extra. That should boast their value , right? Wrong! They are still worth a penny. In fact according to my friends who are into numismatics they are now worth less than before. Real coin collectors want “original” condition coins not coins that have been altered.
Some of our sellers with great perspicacious insight are offering to sell you all five not yet minted coins. You pay now and they send them to you as they become available. They will include the cute plastic containers, a nice album with Lincoln information and if you want the gold plating. The price for such helpfulness is anywhere from $89.95 to $ 123.00 . Of course you have to add to that the proverbial postage and handling. Now this is a great deal. They have your money to play with and you still have to wait until the mint puts out the coins.
You might be thinking that everything I said is true but you want to leave something that will be of value to your great grandchildren . One hundred years from now just think of what those gold plated, plastic encased pennies will be worth.
Lets assume they are worth one hundred times their original value. That by the way is pretty good for an average coin. Most coins do not increase that much. Your great grandkids now have five pennies worth $5.00 . That’s lots less than what you paid but life is like that.
Or as P.T. Barnum said “ There’s a sucker born every minute.”

News from Pigeon Falls

The little town in my basement where the trains still run, dragons fly, and life is back to normal
Poor Tommy UK spent all of yesterday wishing he knew more about his birth parents. It’s not that he loved his adoptive parents any less or even that he wanted to replace them. No! He was just curious. What kind of birth parent could leave him a rock with such power?
Tommy’s uncle might know. He had, after all, arranged the adoption. But there was no way he could get to Iron Mountain until Saturday . Until then he would just have to wonder. He did think of using the rock to transport himself to Iron Mountain. But that had two problems. First of all he had promised to use the rock properly and he wasn’t sure if that was a proper use. And second he had no idea how to use it in that manner. In fact he had no idea how to use it period! When he helped Herman it had all seemed to come automatically .He didn’t know if you wished on it or or commanded it or what you did to make it work.
In addition to his desire to find out who his birth parents were Tommy felt a need to tell somebody what he had learned about himself. It was not the kind of thing you shouted from the roof top but still he needed to tell somebody. His first choice would have been Tammy but they still weren’t talking. For a moment, just for a moment, he thought of zapping her with his rock so she would like him again. But then he thought that came under the proper use category.
He began to feel like Parker in the Spider Man comic . With great power came great responsibility.
Responsibility he was discovering was a real pain.

Wrap UP

It snowed so much last night our handy man had to come and shovel us out. So far the month has been a tease. For a bit it was warming up and melting. You could see the grass . Now it is all white again. Did I say I hate winter. At least my oxygen was good this morning. I printed out my November blogs to send to my sister Dawn. That took all morning. In the afternoon I got back to trying to organize my computer. I need to label a lot of pictures. It would have been so much easier if I had labeled them when I loaded them in. Since I visited every link yesterday today I only visited those that left comments and the link of the day. Now I need a breathing treatment.
GBYA

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