MONEY: For 1

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Fed up with calls from people wanting to sell them pennies, Los Angeles coin dealers quit answering their jangling phones. In Ohio, a man offered a new 1960 Pontiac for a $50 bag of mint 1960 pennies. In Philadelphia, San Francisco and other cities, banks were experiencing a penny shortage.

The penny panic broke out when a Washington coin dealer told a reporter that new 1960 pennies with flawed date numerals were "the hottest item in the coin business," bringing up to $8 apiece. When the story hit the papers, a post office in New Orleans had to put on seven extra clerks to handle the calls. An eager Philadelphian backed a trailer up to the mint, prepared to buy pennies by the bagful and take his chances. Nobody seemed to be listening when the Assistant Director of the Bureau of the Mint announced that the pennies in question were not flawed in any way that would enhance their value, that there were many millions of them in circulation anyway, and that they were really worth just 1¢ apiece.