PENNIES ARE IN SHORT SUPPLY

Brother, can you spare a penny?

That was the sentiment Friday at Schnucks and Mercantile Bank in Cape Girardeau where pennies were in short supply.

The Federal Reserve in St. Louis won't be distributing any more pennies to banks in eastern Missouri until June, said a Federal Reserve Bank spokesman. That is when the federal bank expects to receive a new shipment of pennies from the U.S. Mint.

But it is little consolation to those who need the pennies now.

Schnucks put up signs in its Cape Girardeau store Friday asking people to pay in exact change so they don't have to make change with pennies.

Dennis Marchi, store manager, said the store had to make do without a new supply of pennies over the weekend.

Mercantile Bank said it could provide only some of the supply of pennies the store uses in its daily transactions.

"Last time I remember there was a penny shortage, it was in the mid-1980s," Marchi said.

Mercantile Bank is so short of pennies that it has started paying a 10 percent premium to people who bring in pennies and exchange them for other coins or currency.

"We just started that in the last couple of days," said Lowell Peterson, president of the local Mercantile Bank.

Peterson said the bank was notified by the Federal Reserve last week that it wouldn't receive any more pennies until at least June 1. He said the bank usually receives about $500 in pennies a week from the Federal Reserve.

"We regularly use more pennies than we take in," said Peterson. Large grocery stores and department stores need a lot of pennies to make change, he said.

He said customers at such stores regularly leave with one to four pennies. "That is a lot of pennies," said Peterson.

The problem is that most people don't spend the pennies. "They are just thrown in a jar in everybody's bedroom and that is where they sit," he said.

Peterson said the bank would require businesses to pay a 10 percent premium for pennies once its regular supply of the zinc and copper coins is gone.

Peterson said the corporate office of the Mercantile Bank chain had indicated that there was a nationwide shortage of pennies.

But officials with the U.S. Mint in Washington, D.C., said they aren't aware of any penny shortages. A spokesman said the Mint has had no production or shipping problems.

Charles Henderson of the Federal Reserve in St. Louis said a customer of one eastern Missouri bank recently received thousands of dollars in pennies for a special promotion.

"That certainly did a lot to deplete our reserves," he said.

Henderson said the Federal Reserve still has a supply of pennies in reserve. "We are not out."

He said the Federal Reserve banks typically make their requests for new supplies of coins two months in advance of when the coins are needed.

(TIMELINE)

1793 -- The U.S. Mint's first delivery of coins consisted of 11,178 copper cents. The composition was pure copper until 1837.

1900 -- The first Lincoln cent was produced and carried wheat-ears patterns on the revers side.

1943 -- The content of the cent coins was changed to zinc-coated steel due to copper shortage during World War II.

1998 -- The U.S. Mint produced 10.2 billion pennies. The Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis handled $2.15 million in pennies in eastern Missouri, a 26 percent increse over 1997.

1999 -- In the first three months, 2.48 billion pennies were produced. The Lincoln cent is the only circulating coin currently produced in which the portrait faces to the right.