Buddy, Can You Spare a Penny?

Despite a nation-wide shortage, there are still plenty of pennies around the Square.

The government is minting less coppers than it used to, but the demand for them is just as great as always. The result is a shortage that Federal Reserve System officials have described as "acute."

The Square is holding its own in the crisis, however. "We have felt no special drain on pennies so far," Albert Hamilton, assistant treasurer of the Harvard Trust Company, told the CRIMSON yesterday. "Other trust banks always have a surplus from parking meters and we can use that if we have to."

Local merchants said that the situation here has not yet become critical. They believe that customers who hoard pennies in piggy banks are seriously to blame for the present situation. "If customers would only turn in their loose pennies when they make a purchase," one store-keeper said, "all this would never have happened."

The agreed that the growing trend towards odd-numbered prices is partially responsible for the shortage.