Following on from my previous post about  the nickel and pre-1982 penny being the most valuable coins when judged by the metal content metric I received the following email from my ‘Loyal Correspondent‘.

Dear Lord Sidewalker,

In your post dated January 6th 2010 you stated that the pre-1982 penny was worth 2.2 cents due to it’s make up of copper content. Well let me inform you that the switch in alloys for the manufacture of the penny actually took place at some time in the middle of 1982, thus making your statement at best flawed at worst patently wrong. I was previously in awe of your coin knowledge, but now find myself questioning the very faith that I put into your written missives.

Your Loyal Correspondent

LS: Well my corresponding friend, allow me to try to redeem myself. It is true my statement was incorrect, there are some predominately copper 1982 pennies, as well as the modern zinc core 1982 pennies. How do you tell them apart? You need a very delicate piece of high tech machinery! Not really, you just need some scales. The copper penny will weigh in at 3.0g and its younger zinc cored sibling will weigh in at a svelte 2.5g . I hope this clears up any remaining doubts in your mind as to my coin knowledge!

Hopefully this will conclude my coin nerd posts for at least a couple of weeks…

-Luke Sidewalker

-Current balance $26.06

You may remember about a month ago I had a particularly entertaining email from a self described Loyal Correspondent. We deduced he/she is from overseas and more than likely from the United Kingdom, due to his/her references of V.A.T. (Value Added Tax) which is their version of G.S.T.

Well, my published article last week about The Black Holes of Currency has once again drawn this mystery correspondent out of his/her hole.

I received the following email from them:

Dear Lord Sidewalker,

I suggest you stand next to a ‘hand-cranked press-a-penny souvenir machine’ with a large bag of foil wrapped chocolate pennies. By substituting the real thing for the much loved confection you will save the US legal system many headaches and also make a mint!!

As ever, your loyal correspondent…

LS: I thought this a very witty and ingenious suggestion to the issues I outlined in the article. However, it seems that our Loyal Correspondent has little knowledge of how attorneys operate here. Far from reducing their headaches, they spend most of their energies in seeking ‘headaches’ in order to rack up the billable hours.

My suggestion to cure the US legal system of ‘many headaches’ is very simple and easy to implement. Whenever a court case is found to be frivolous, just disbar the attorney representing the plaintiff. In no time at all we will have a more efficient and headache free legal system…

As long as the Loyal Correspondent keeps providing this humorous content, I’m left wondering whether or not to give them a regular guest spot here at the Sidewalker Journal. What do you think?

-Luke Sidewalker
-Current balance $24.06