When I was a teen and for many years after, our local skating rink would have a constant "special" that you could get in for less money if you paid with a 50 cent piece. Someone somewhere has a mountain of those now for some reason. That was way after they were no longer silver, so I have wondered here and there what the motive was. Maybe by asking for that, they sometimes got older silver ones by default, or maybe they were building a 50 cent clad outhouse or something....LOL One never knows.... right ?
Within a month or two of covid, I no longer paid anything with real money unless I absolutely had too. I didn't really want anyone handing me change back after handling money of hundreds of other folks. I kept all the coins I did get during that time, but it barely fills the bottom of a glass half gallon apple juice jar. I didn't know if coins would disappear altogether at some point, so that is what I did.
You made me curious why we might call pennies... pennies. I knew why I did, it's because that's what my parents said they were ! LOL.... but on quick glance, it seems like some think it had something to do with us being under the British pound sterling system in the beginning of our country and there being 100 pence in a pound. I also didn't know that "pence" was the plural instead of pennies at the time. That was about all the research I did in 2 minutes...LOL....it's the British's fault ! .. or it may just be a theory.
I never wondered about that before.
It has everything to do with the British, but, we were pushing all things British out of our system. Even Pounds and Ounces - gallons, miles. We tried to run as hard and fast from them as we could. So why steal their penny? LOL
I used to get 50-cent pieces from the banks if they had any in their drawers or grocery store if they had one in their drawer.
You are right, during Covid, I never paid in cash ever - and to be honest, most stores didn't take cash. Some of the stores here still don't take cash. Actually quite a few.
Back to the fifty-cent pieces... Now I have a bunch of them, but, they were pretty cool, so I still will pick one up if I see one. Alas, few carry cash! I bet they are building that special outhouse!