My wife and I had a discussion about finding a penny. She mentioned the superstition that it’s only good luck if the heads side of the penny is showing and bad luck otherwise and that she’d learnt that from her grandma. I thought that this had to be a fairly recent superstition in that a penny was worth quite a bit when her grandma was a kid (the 1920s) and that even when I was a kid you could buy penny gumballs from the machines (1970s). She’s ten years younger than me and was amazed that you could buy anything with a penny that recently.
Past background and now on to questions:
When did the heads up penny superstition start?
When did all those penny gumball machines disappear from the grocery stores?
What could you buy with a penny in the old days?
I know when I was a kid, the penny heads up was good luck. Heads down = bad luck. And I was born in 1964.
In my day you couldn’t buy much with a penny, but you could buy a candy bar for a nickel, then it was a dime shortly. But that was the key. A penny wasn’t worth much but five (or later 10) could be a WHOLE candy bar.
And back when I was a kid, my mother never bought us treats. If we wanted a candy bar we had to buy it from our own money. Or eat fruit, which was just awful to a six year old.
So you see a penny wasn’t much, it was a start to a candy bar. Which was GREAT, 'cause those were real treat. And with some effort, you could look around even in the late 60s and early 70s and find 5 or 10 pennies per day IF you looked hard enough.
Today with a candy bar, what like 75¢ or more, a penny is a start to a candy bar, but not much of a start and the candy bar is a lot smaller
You couldn’t buy anything for a penny in the old days. In the old days the standard unit of money was a nickel. Everything cost a nickel back then. Just ask anybody old enough to remember.
I was born in 1965, and also remember the heads = good luck, tails = bad luck thing.
There were penny candies you could buy. The same kinds of things you get in bulk bins at grocery stores now. Think you could get a “jawbreaker” or really big piece of bubble gum for two cents. Maybe three cents. Nickel candy bars, dime cokes–or really big Baby ruth or Butterfinger bars–so big you almost couldn’t eat the whole thing at once, and probably would not be allowed to if you’re mother was watching.
.22 rounds cost about a penny each through the late 70s, in my area. You couldn’t buy just one, but a box of 50 was fifty cents if you caught a sale, and you could get 500 rounds for $5.00 sometimes.
I can give you a more-or-less definitive answer regarding the folklore. In German-speaking countries, the idea of giving a lucky penny with new clothing seems fairly old. My German ability is abysmal, so I can’t help you go beyond that. Meanwhile, in English-speaking countries, finding a pin was good luck. The two didn’t come together until the 19th century.
“See a pin and pick it up” and variants are attested from oral tradition from 1883 (Shropshire) to 1956 (Oregon).
“See a penny, pick it up” and variants are attested from oral tradition only after 1950. The notion of a found penny being lucky is attested from America from the 1930s (Detroit, 1935; Lebanon, IL, 1950).
Before the Depression, finding money was in general considered bad luck (cites from 1572 through 1972), and in the early cites where it isn’t bad, it’s only good if you do something unusual: hide it, give it away, etc. The “heads up only” thing is sporadic, but attested from 1911 (before the penny-specific ones). Must go—I’ll return and make this more coherent later if necessary.
How old are the “old days”? In Revolutionary War times (late 18th-c. America), a penny (as in, one of the British copper pence) might be good for a loaf of bread or a half pint of beer.
In late 19th-century America, two pennies would buy a daily newspaper, and one penny a small apple from a fruit vendor.
Benjamin Franklin, on his arrival in Philadelphia in 1723:
Then I walked up the street, gazing about till near the market-house I met a boy with bread. I had made many a meal on bread, and, inquiring where he got it, I went immediately to the baker’s he directed me to, in Secondstreet, and ask’d for bisket, intending such as we had in Boston; but they, it seems, were not made in Philadelphia. Then I asked for a three-penny loaf, and was told they had none such. So not considering or knowing the difference of money, and the greater cheapness nor the names of his bread, I made him give me three-penny worth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three great puffy rolls. I was surpriz’d at the quantity, but took it, and, having no room in my pockets, walk’d off with a roll under each arm, and eating the other. Thus I went up Market-street as far as Fourth-street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my future wife’s father; when she, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance.
I always heard the heads up = good luck, tails up = bad luck.
The small grocery down the street had a penny gumball machine, a penny candy shelf and a two cent candy shelf. Candy bars were a nickel until probably sometime in the early seventies, when they went up to a dime. Bottled cokes were .15 and popscicles were .05.
Beyond munchies, you could buy a school notebook for .20 or a bar of soap for .12*. Pencils were two for a nickel.
One penny might not have bought a lot, but as someone earlier said, it didn’t take too many to buy something.
*Mom used to send us down to the grocery for odds and ends when she ran out. Some of the prices I remember because I got some or all of the change.
I was actually taught to turn a penny over so the kids could pick it up heads up. As a kid, I would kick it or otherwise try to flip it without picking it up, before taking it. I never heard that picking it up tails was bad luck, but I knew picking it up heads was good luck.
And though I was born in 1985, I remember being able to get candy for a penny at the pharmacy–you’d get a Tootsie Roll.
Maybe it is a regional thing. Born in 1961. The saying where I grew up was: See a penny pick it up, all the day you’ll have good luck. See a penny, let it lay, bad luck will surely come your way.
Yes. The belief / custom complex has a lot of variation. I’ve done a survey of about 200 college students on this; what BigT reports (the flipping the penny over) is uncommon but not unheard of (most people either said you can’t change it, or else that you could turn it over, but then you had to leave it for someone else). More people reported heads up=good than tails up=bad. The full rhyme was originally applied to pins, but transferred in the U.S. to pennies. Most people only know the first half. The shorter version seems to be older but this is hard to gauge.
I was born in 1964 and raised in NE Ohio, and I always heard it as, “Find a penny, pick it up; all the day you’ll have good luck.” Never heard that it had to be face up for good luck, though. I don’t remember being able to buy anything for just a penny, but accumulating them - a nickel or a dime’s worth - could get you a small piece of candy or cheap plastic toy.
On the other hand, my moron cousins would throw away small change because “it’s too much trouble to keep it.” :rolleyes:
