Remember common ¢ents?

[David Conwill]

As a kid (and I’m fairly young, so this is not too long ago), I can remember commonly seeing prices identified with the cent sign, as in: 49¢ for a bottle of Testor’s model paint. Now that same price would be displayed as $0.49.

What happened? Is it inflation? Fewer and fewer things are available for less than a dollar. Or was there a major technological change that swept away the cent sign?

Perhaps the rise of computer use. The average keyboard does not have the cent sign, though it’s still available as a special character, so it’s faster to use the dollar sign and a decimal point.

-Dave

 

[Feraud]

You might be an Atavist if you recall and long for the return of the ¢ .

 

[Carlisle Blues]

^^^

lol lol lol lol lol

 

[dhermann1]

I often see prices at delis and greengrocers marked like this $1.49¢.

 

[Yeps]

I often see prices at delis and greengrocers marked like this $1.49¢.

Now that is just silly.

As to the original question... I don't know anyone who uses coins anymore, lots of change is lost.

 

[Feraud]

Quarters are always in demand at laundromats. I am sure delis pass along plenty of change.

 

[23SkidooWithYou]

The ex-retail junky wonders...

Just wondering if it's symptomatic of the evolution of retail...

Way back when, retail items were hand ticketed or the prices were pencilled in on the bottom. There were smaller stores, usually proprietorships, smaller assortments of goods and a smaller percentage of society indulged in store-bought items. I would imagine it was feasible to hand price everything you sold, or not price it and check a list for the pricing.

As demand grew, as industry flourished, assortments expanded, store chains popped up and the need for an automated method of pricing merchandise came about. I'm thinking the "ticket gun", still used today to reprice items in stores, changed things. It's easier to set the gun to $ and rely on the decimal to indicate cents than it is to constantly change the symbol from cents to dollars. Plus, there are laws that require store pricing to be accurate (they do get audited), lest they be fined. Having been a retail manager, I can imagine the horror of discovering a price gun or ticket maker was set to cents when it should have been set to dollars. I think it's probably just easier to have ticket guns and makers set to one symbol.

I would also agree that very little is available for less than a dollar these days and if it is, it's usually a quantity purchase eg 2/$1, 3/$1 etc.

 

[Foofoogal]

You might be an Atavist if you recall and long for the return of the ¢ .

lol lol :eusa_clap

remember when double bubble gum was a penny?
Now it is hard to find anything in the store less than $1.00.

<---One can find me occasionally fussing in the store aisle.
I immediately go into feeling sorry for young families with children and then get mad in that order.

recently there was talk about doing away with the penny I believe.

 

[LizzieMaine]

As demand grew, as industry flourished, assortments expanded, store chains popped up and the need for an automated method of pricing merchandise came about. I'm thinking the "ticket gun", still used today to reprice items in stores, changed things. It's easier to set the gun to $ and rely on the decimal to indicate cents than it is to constantly change the symbol from cents to dollars. Plus, there are laws that require store pricing to be accurate (they do get audited), lest they be fined. Having been a retail manager, I can imagine the horror of discovering a price gun or ticket maker was set to cents when it should have been set to dollars. I think it's probably just easier to have ticket guns and makers set to one symbol.

I would also agree that very little is available for less than a dollar these days and if it is, it's usually a quantity purchase eg 2/$1, 3/$1 etc.

Good points. I can remember those purple ink-stamp things grocery clerks used, that marked the price before pricing guns -- a big "29" in a circle for a 29 cent item, and very few packaged items sold for over a dollar, so it wasn't really an issue until inflation set in. That coincided with the rise of the pricing gun, and the cents sign was history.

As far as change goes, we go thru a ton of quarters at the theatre -- our regular admission is priced at $8.50, and most people here still use cash rather than plastic, so we usually start off the night with two rolls of quarters in the till. Plus we price a lot of concession items at $2.50, and go thru a lot of quarters there.

I wanted to switch to fifty-cent-pieces and make it even easier, but it turns out our bank doesn't stock them anymore. Bah.

 

[Undertow]

I'm certain you're correct with the keyboard functionality issue. If the cents symbol (spelled out because I'm simply too lazy to find the character on my character map) was easier to type, then it would appear on more items as such.

I'm sure inflation has also had its part as things aren't typically a dollar anymore. Moreover, I believe you'll see these cents symbols in places like delis and butcher shops, etc. because not only are those harbors for the old fashioned, but prices are usually ever-changing and written by hand.

I must ALSO agree with 23SkidooWithYou in that stores were typically smaller, more time was placed on either handwritten tags or every-item-marked, and there was limited selection thereby no need for massive computerized (and thereby $0.49) inventories.

 

[Cufflinks]

I had an older typewriter as a teenager and I'm fairly certain there was a cent key.

 

[Undertow]

I wanted to switch to fifty-cent-pieces and make it even easier, but it turns out our bank doesn't stock them anymore. Bah.

That and people (in Des Moines, IA anyway) look at you as if you've STOLEN 50 cents from them when you hand them a half-dollar. Ridiculous!

I'm happy to receive a Kennedy (or maybe a Franklin, if I'm lucky), and I tend to save those in my pocket to use them again when I'm able. Granted, I'm not a big fan of the tiny $1 pieces, but should they be slightly larger, or comparable to the .50's, I would use those too!

 

[23SkidooWithYou]

People seldom paid us with correct change. It could be because change just isn't psychologically valued as much as paper bills...and possibly because we are in a hurry and lazy and don't have the time or interest to count out exact change. Easier for the service person to do it for us.

I had heard that cent endings started as a way to keep employees honest. A dollar could be slipped in a pocket and merchandise handed over, never having to use the cash register. But 99 cents required a penny back to the customer so you HAD to open the register. Now everything is barcoded and loaded with inventory control #'s that are recorded in the register so it's impossible to just hand somebody merchandise, pocket the dough and shoo them away without a receipt. (However, there are a ton more ways to steal from you're employer by exploiting the retail system but I shall refrain.)

 

[Tango Yankee]

recently there was talk about doing away with the penny I believe.

The US military did away with using the penny overseas a very long time ago. They'd found it cost more to ship the pennies overseas than they were worth. Prices didn't change, the final total was simply rounded up or down to the nearest nickel--unless you were using a card or writing a check.

People seldom paid us with correct change. It could be because change just isn't psychologically valued as much as paper bills...and possibly because we are in a hurry and lazy and don't have the time or interest to count out exact change. Easier for the service person to do it for us.

Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. It generally has to do with how much change I have on my person already and whether or not I need quarters for the soda machines at work which are $1.25. It may also depend upon what all is in my pocket that would have to be pulled out in order to get to the change.

Cheers,
Tom

 

[Nick D]

I often see prices at delis and greengrocers marked like this $1.49¢.

You see this in the UK as well from time to time, e.g. £4.20p. Use of the p for pence is more common than the cents sign, though, for prices under a pound.

 

[Shangas]

I often see prices at delis and greengrocers marked like this $1.49¢.

When I was a child, my father always taught me that this was the wrong way to write down a price and that the 'Cents' sign was unnecessary and should be left off, since anything after the "." was not part of a whole dollar, and was therefore, logically, the cents left behind.

 

[Edward]

recently there was talk about doing away with the penny I believe.

I remember the half penny being done away with here in the UK - early 80s, about 1983, I think. (Around the same time as they introduced the 20p coin, if memory serves).

It's long been said that the one new penny coin costs the Royal Mint more than any other coin to produce, as so many of them are simply thrown away, left down the back of the sofa, whatever - they constantly need to produce more of them to put back into circulation. I suspect this may be something of an urban myth, though..... That said, I can certainly see them being phased out eventually.

I had heard that cent endings started as a way to keep employees honest. A dollar could be slipped in a pocket and merchandise handed over, never having to use the cash register. But 99 cents required a penny back to the customer so you HAD to open the register. Now everything is barcoded and loaded with inventory control #'s that are recorded in the register so it's impossible to just hand somebody merchandise, pocket the dough and shoo them away without a receipt. (However, there are a ton more ways to steal from you're employer by exploiting the retail system but I shall refrain.)

I believe this to be true. Of course, nowadays it's as much about the psychology of making a sale: $4.99 'sounds' less than $5.00, enough to make the difference for many would be buyers, so for the sake of a cent, the shop makes a sale it might not have otherwise. I remember hearing tell of small shops in Germany (I'm sure it was there.... probably elsewhere in Europe too), as recently as the late 80s, where they would hand out matchbooks, sweets, and other small-value items in change in place of very low value denominations for which coins were unavailable. My gut instinct is that eventually the UK will phase out the coppers altogether, and the smallest unit will be 5p, prices then being £4.95 as opposed to £5.00, etc. Of course, that assumes we won't be taking on the Euro anytime soon...

 

[The Wolf]

I've seen signs reading .49¢, wouldn't that be 1/2 of one cent?

Sincerely,
The Wolf

 

[scotrace]

But who has not been in line at the grocery store tapping a foot while the person ahead carefully counts out exact change? Far quicker for everyone to swipe and dash.

 

[LizzieMaine]

But who has not been in line at the grocery store tapping a foot while the person ahead carefully counts out exact change? Far quicker for everyone to swipe and dash.

I'm guilty of doing this. But I count fast.