still, half a sixpence
better than half a penny
is better than none
Today’s Haiku is based on some verse from the 1963 Musical, Half a Sixpence). According to Wikipedia, Half a Sixpence is a 1963 musical comedy based on the 1905 novel Kipps by H. G. Wells, with music and lyrics by David Heneker and a book by Beverley Cross. It was written as a vehicle for British pop star Tommy Steele.
I had no idea it was a based on a book by HG Wells.
The line in question goes:
Still, half a sixpence
Is better than a half a penny
Is better than a half a farthing
Is better than none
I do remember it was selected as the High School Musical at Grand Rapids Creston High School when my little brother Steve was in the choir and he got the part of the evil brother who tries to steal the fortune of the hero.
Never thought much about the play until years later when I read the autobiography of John Cleese who wrote that in 1963 he and a bunch of his buddies from college took a comedy review to New York City and the shows producer saw him and offered him the role mostly due to his British accent. Cleese writes that was astounded to find himself, at age 24, in a Broadway Musical playing the evil brother.
And it clicked.
Hey, that was Steve’s part!
The idea that the United States Penny with Mr. Lincoln on it is no longer being made go me thinking about coins.
According to some sources, the visage of Mr. Lincoln on the penny is the single most viewed work of art in history.
At one time Branniff Airlines had Alexander Calder paint some of their planes and claimed that one of them, “The Flying Colors of the United States”, christened by First Lady Betty Ford and flown on its inaugural flight to Grand Rapids, Michigan was also a work of art and IT was seen by more people than any other single work of art in the history of the world. There is some question about that number as it would appear that when the plane flew over New York City, Braniff would claim that 8 million people looked up and saw it … as a tiny dot in the sky. As Mr. Frank Lloyd Wright would have said, “There you are.”
But I digress.
Thinking again about coins, I thought back to when I friend of mine was planning a trip to Great Britain and asked if I wanted anything.
I did.
I wanted some British coins.
Thinking of the line from My Fair Lady, whenever Alfred P. Doolittle comes on the scene, everyone prepares for him to ask for money and they cut him off saying, ‘NOT A BRASS FARTHING.”
I had to look it up.
Understand coins had some value based on what they were made of.
Golden Guineas.
Silver Shillings. (I always loved this bit of useless knowledge that Brits use £ and in each £ are 20 silver shillings. Back in the day and I mean Henry Vth days, 20 Silver Shillings weighed … one pound.)
Copper Pennies.
Farthings, worth 1/4 of cent or 4 to a penny were made of brass.
So I asked for some brass farthings.
And maybe a two penny or three penny or even a six penny piece, knowns as Tuppence, Thrupence and Sixpence coins.
My friend returned from her trip and came in my office and slammed the coins down on my desk.
“I had to go to three different antique stores,” she said.
As un aware as any of what happened in Great Britain, the coinage system of the revolutionary war, Dicken’s and Yeats, Forester and Orwell had disappeared in the late 1970’s though it took decades for people to forget about ‘New Money’.
I mean it was time.
As Alistair Cooke wrote about Thomas Jefferson on old money, “His objections to the laboriousness of pounds, shillings, and pence anticipated by two hundred years the wisdom of the British government: the ordinary man or woman “is used to be puzzled by adding the farthings, taking out the twenties and carrying them on; but when he came to pounds, where he had only tens to carry forward, it was easy and free from error.” He suggested that, since “everyone knows the facility of decimal arithmetic,” it should be adopted in the coinage “to the great ease of the community.”
Still hard to understand that we no longer need the penny.
Or that it costs more to make a penny that a penny is worth.
In other words, for every Penny that got minted, the US Government lost 2 cents.
Right there is the old Catch 22 of buying eggs for 5 cents and selling them for 3 cents.
Boy Howdy but it gets confusing.
What was the worth of a penny today?
And the old saying, at one point you reach the age where anything less than a Quarter isn’t worth picking up.
But it was good to hear that up north, Meijer Stores will continue its penny pony rides.
If you grew up in West Michigan, like I did, you rode one of those Penny ponies.
My wife would take our 2 year son, in full Cowboy Regalia, to ride that penny pony.
What’s the worth of that?
To many of us, priceless.
So shines a good deed in a weary world.
Still, half a sixpence
Is better than a half a penny
Is better than a half a farthing
Is better than none.
No Haiku For You 