It looks like our five cent pieces are destined for the scrapheap and the 10 cent piece is likely to follow says the boss of the Australian Mint because of the increase in debit cards and online payments.
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Most of us regard them as a nuisance and millions of these coins drop out of circulation every year because they're hoarded in piggy banks or lost.
So it now seems it won't be long before the Mint calls time on our smallest piece of pretty-well useless shrapnel.
What in today's prices can you buy with them?
Bananas, for example, were 63c each this week at Woollies so 5c would get you a piece about 2 centimetres long while 5c would get you about four white seedless grapes, sold for $4.90kg.
A packet of cashews costs $5.50 and with 150 inside that's about 3c each so you wouldn't even get two for five cents.
You can get three 250mm nails at Bunnings and maybe a screw or washer for 5c but the cheapest hexagon nut would cost around 12 cents.
When the five-cent coin is ditched there's no doubt prices will be rounded up to the nearest 10 cents so we'll be paying more for groceries although that's happening now with most prices finishing in .99c rather than .95c. The Mint says shops would still have to accept the coins or people could return them to banks and be compensated.
So when the five cent coin goes, will it worry anyone?
National anthem ditched
The decision by the new ARL Commission chairman Peter V'Landys to dump the Australian national anthem for this year's All Stars rugby league game is a case of the tail wagging the dog.
The Telegraph described it as a 'mark of respect...'
How could dumping the country's national anthem possibly be a mark of respect?
And it's supposedly all over the words 'young and free.'
The anthem is an important national symbol and should be treated as such.
The Aboriginal footballers who refuse to acknowledge it should remember the Indigenous round when young star Taliah King sang it in native Dharawal language and everything was fine.
Working dog's tough task
Floods this week on the mid-north coast. The paddocks are under water just like an inland sea.
A city visitor held up in his car is amazed to see a sheep dog's tail sticking out of the water like a periscope on a submarine.
It moves 60m to the right and stops. Then 30m to the left and stops. Then back to the right.
The city slicker asks an old timer watching near the fence: "What's the matter with the dog. Is he drowning?"
"Nuthin of the kind," the old timer says. "That's me best sheep dog.
"I told him to bring in a mob of sheep and come hell or high water, he's bloody well bringin' 'em in."
Come on drivers
This column hammers it a lot but it seems every second driver in Orange going straight ahead on a roundabout still fails to signal left when exiting. It's about time some of these lazy drivers were pinged so other motorists don't have to stop to see where oncoming cars are going to go.
The fine is $191 and two demerit points so if coppers issued a few, drivers might get the message and do the right thing.
