Trumpus I

W.J. Astore

An Old Penny Teaches Me a Lesson

A few months ago, I sorted through some old pennies. I know: Who does this anymore? Aren’t pennies obsolete? Does anybody still bend down to pick up pennies? 

I found an old Lincoln “wheat” penny from 1944 (I used to see a lot more “wheat” pennies when I was young), and somehow, somewhere, I picked up an Indian head penny from 1888 (in fair condition at best). But the one that most surprised me was a Canadian penny from 1943 featuring King George VI.

My King George VI penny had this inscription on the front: GEORGIUS VI D:G: REX ET IND IMP. I confess I had to look that up. What it means is this:

George VI, by the grace of God, King and Emperor of India

And it immediately occurred to me that this is the type of coin Trump would want, though of course I doubt Trump would want his profile on a penny. Anyhow, I could imagine a big Trump coin (gold, naturally), with an inscription like this:

Trumpus I, by the grace of God, King and Emperor of Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal

It got me to laughing as a way to hide my tears.

Anyhow, just four years after my George VI penny was minted, India was on its way to independence, recognizing it didn’t need a British monarch to rule over it. Who knew India would gain its independence so quickly after World War II? Certainly not the British monarchy.

History is full of surprises, and events can often move far more quickly than we think possible. I hope that means that America will free itself of Trump as quickly as India sloughed off George VI. Who needs a wannabe monarch like Trump?

Let’s hope Trump’s image never adorns official U.S. coinage. After all, his image is already on far too many “commemorative” coins that he sells to his admirers and followers.

You can buy ten of these “coins” at Amazon for $16.99. Good grief!

2 thoughts on “Trumpus I”

  1. WJ, Thank you very much for injecting a bit of humor this morning. We can really use it and are way overdue.

    Jerry King

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  2. Regarding India, I was surprised to learn the historical fact that it was private companies with private armies that gained Western dominance in India that allowed the British government to step in and take command. We know that mighty US corporations have made way for the American empire and are a large factor driving it.

    On pennies, I never thought of looking for rare ones because even if one finds a penny worth 1000 times its face value, the result is $10. I sold a collection of coins for a friend on eBay, many of the coins foreign, and the take was $8000 from which I took 10%. It was a delight to handle the coins, some quite beautiful, in the process of taking photos of them.

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