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Pennies per square foot, literally

The entryway of The Standard Grill, in Manhattan, is tiled with thousands of US pennies, set in a black matrix. Looks like between one and two dollar's worth of pennies per square foot, which is comparable to ceramic tile, price-wise, but a whole lot more interesting IMHO. Via NOTCOT.

Comments

Oldest comments listed first.

Posted by: Ugo on July 6, 2009 at 9:11 AM

But..

as much as i like this well rendered penny floor, i cant help asking myself: What about the law?
Read here:
http://www.moneyfactory.gov/document.cfm/18/104

I dont really care but i'm quite curious...

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Posted by: Inigo on July 6, 2009 at 10:59 AM

I always wondered about those penny-squisher souvenir machines at tourist attractions, too. Looks like the US law concerning coins is a little different. Looks like it's all about fraudulent intent, which probably isn't the case with this floor or elongated coins.

18 USC Sec. 331
Sec. 331. Mutilation, diminution, and falsification of coins

-STATUTE-
Whoever fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates, impairs,
diminishes, falsifies, scales, or lightens any of the coins coined
at the mints of the United States, or any foreign coins which are
by law made current or are in actual use or circulation as money
within the United States; or
Whoever fraudulently possesses, passes, utters, publishes, or
sells, or attempts to pass, utter, publish, or sell, or brings into
the United States, any such coin, knowing the same to be altered,
defaced, mutilated, impaired, diminished, falsified, scaled, or
lightened -
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five
years, or both.

http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/18C17.txt

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Posted by: Michael on July 6, 2009 at 11:25 AM

Law...

More info on the law. It even has a specific section on coins.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=426715

Both US and foreign currencies fall under this. However, I have never heard of it being enforced. Think of all the magic tricks you can buy (Scotch and Soda, etc) that use real currency that has been modified. Those companies still do it. Think of all of the silver jewelery that you can find with coins in it... like I said, it is pretty common but you never hear of the secret service swooping down on them.

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Posted by: ehrichweiss on July 6, 2009 at 4:41 PM

magic..

Exactly, Michael. Magicians have altered and abused every bill and coin known to man throughout the years and you don't hear about us being rounded up by the Treasury Dept/Secret Service.

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Posted by: Jim on July 6, 2009 at 11:29 AM

This is legal. Coins are not treated the same way as bills under this law, and precedent has long been established that doing this with pennies is just fine.

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Posted by: Paul G on July 6, 2009 at 11:44 AM

Same in the UK

That was the first thought that came to my mind. Some jobsworth is bound to get all uppity about the abuse of a sacred penny.

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Posted by: Andy Bowd on July 6, 2009 at 11:38 AM

UK half pennies

In 1984 the British decided to stop making the half penny coin. It was a useless little coin, so very few people mourned it's passing. It was a copper coin, around 17mm across, so a lot of them took up a lot of space, and you couldn't do anything with time.

After the coin has been removed from circulation, I made my Dad a coaster that was a hexagon, probably 10, maybe 15 coins across. It was on a thin piece of ply, and then just covered with varnish.

I was amazed a year or so ago to discover that not only is that coaster still in daily use, but there's hardly a mark on the thing. Coins would definitely make great flooring, in fact I've considered covering one of my workbenches with coins.

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Posted by: jill on July 6, 2009 at 12:19 PM

set in a black matrix

any idea about what black goo would work well in this situation?

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Posted by: andrew on July 6, 2009 at 2:14 PM

Cup Cafe tucson

the cup cafe in Hotel Congress, tucson, az has flooring like this, and the hotel lobby has large coffee tables with the same setup.

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Posted by: wah on July 7, 2009 at 5:33 AM

forget the law, the fact is that this can save so many people life in other countries suffer from disease, hunger, famine, poverty.

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Posted by: Colecoman1982 on July 7, 2009 at 6:42 AM

Magic and the Law

He, I tried to respond to this the other day, but it seems that my comment never got posted. Apparently, this is legal in the US. I assume that the difference between the laws for bills and those for coins has more to do with quirks between the different writers of the laws. As for Michael's comments about no one being investigated, I don't think that's, entirely, true.

If you search for "Where's George" on Wikipedia, you'll find an article on a web start-up that encourages people to put a stamp on dollar bills with their URL so that people can track the travels of dollar bills using their serial numbers. Apparently, the Secret Service investigated them a while back and told them to stop selling rubber stamps, for this purpose, from their website as defacement of bills, and their use for advertising, is illegal. My guess is that magicians aren't rounded up because it's not really worth the effort for the Secret Service to go after them considering that each magician only damages a, comparatively, small number of bills.

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Posted by: J on July 8, 2009 at 9:11 AM

the law

note that this law change is RECENT. it USED to be okay and it is NOT now.

also of interest to makers is that a US penny contains nearly 2.1 cents worth of tin

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Posted by: oskay on July 8, 2009 at 11:42 AM

Zinc, not tin.

>also of interest to makers is that a US penny contains nearly 2.1 cents worth of tin

While that would indeed be of interest, the US cent coin has been copper-plated zinc since 1982: 2.5% Cu, Balance Zn. (Source: US mint)

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Posted by: me on July 9, 2009 at 12:28 AM

I think it looks hard to clean. All those little edges and groves, could be a scrubbing nightmare.

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Posted by: Chris Gosnell on July 9, 2009 at 11:47 AM

What about dollars....

I have thought that in the last 10 years or so the penny was a worthless (nearly) US coin for trade.

I would like to see the penny retired, and also, since most pop machines / candy machines have products costing nearly a dollar, why not eliminate the dollar bill?

The newest dollar coin is very good and difficult to confuse with any other coins you may have.

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Posted by: Gaidig on July 20, 2009 at 9:52 AM

I'm quite sure that the cost is not comperable to ceramic tile because counting the pennies does not include the cost of the materials used to fix the pennies in place or the labor to apply the pennies so uniformly. Small ceramic tile comes on a mesh so that it can be applied quickly and easily. Labor would be the main cost of this floor.

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