Photo from Notcot.com.I never set out to be anti-penny, but somehow it happened, and I have gone on the record more than a few times arguing that the penny should be eliminated.
While I stand by my belief that the penny is lousy as currency, someone has finally come up with a use for pennies that has made me reconsider my extinction argument: make a floor out of them! (You can also make a wall out of them.)
The penny floor can be found at the Standard Grill at the new Standard Hotel in New York, the one straddling the High Line. The Standard tells us that it used 250 pennies per square foot, or 480,000 pennies in all.
For those of you thinking about a home renovation, that’s $2.50 per square foot in flooring materials. That stacks up pretty well to glass tile ($25.00/sq. ft.), white onyx marble ($12.50/sq. ft.), porcelain ($6.00/sq. ft.), or even prefinished walnut ($5.00/sq. ft.).
For anyone going the penny-floor route, I guess the big question would be whether to opt for all-heads, all-tails, a set pattern, or a random effect.
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At 256 pennies per sqft, it is just $2.56/sq ft. Probably a bit more once you pay to set them in epoxy and such though.
Out of curiosity – what material are they setting the pennies into? I know this isn’t just a floor covered in little coins – that would make for an extremely treacherous bar indeed.
I’m imaging some sort of laminate or a polycarbonate or woven backing? That would increase the price a bit… but still probably be in a low-budget price range compared to glass, stone or many tiles and woods.
Sounds uncleanable to me, since the pennies will not fit together to cover the whole space. YUCK!
I have always wondered about the expression “a penny for your thoughts.” I have reason to think that Honest Abe was not as honest as we have made him out to be– but then again perhaps he would not have been elected had he been? What does that say about honesty– well in politics (not political science), it’s one thing, in science– its another and then in real life- I think the individual needs to learn to be as real honest with one’s self as one can be–
It would also be interesting to know what the marginal cost of labour for the floor installation of pennies versus the alternatives listed might be?
Im sure it has been stated before, but in australia the 1 and 2 cent peices have been phased out. If you pay in cash, they round teh bill to the nearest 5c. If you use a card, you pay the exact price.
It all evens out in the end, and nobody complains at all.
pennies cannot go unless all sales taxes were rounded to create nickel denominated transactions when summed and factored and that is politically and fiscally unlikely soon. i.e. if all prices were clipped at 5 cents intervals things would not be fine unless the sales taxes were 0%, 5%, 10% and on. The pennies , both physical and electronics that merchants collect add up for the state treasuries.
Jonathan- so true.