In today’s economy, with today’s prices, coins have become nearly worthless.  We all know that the penny costs more to manufacture than it is “worth”.  When was the last time you paid for anything with a few pennies?  Or with a few nickels?  Heck, even paying for anything with a few quarters is becoming a bit harder to do.

So, how do you know when coins are worthless? (besides their worth being less than metallic value)  People start using them regularly (and even commercially) for purposes other than as currency.  Like, I dunno, maybe using coins as an alternative to tile.  Someone has used Nickels to tile their bathroom floor.  There’s several instances of Pennies being used as tile.  A bathroom tiled with pennies. And an entire restaurant floor.

Kinda looks cool, actually.  I can’t find a figure on the pennies, but according to the post, the nickel floor has 195 nickels per square foot.  Or, about 9.75 a square foot for flooring.  Kind of expensive for flooring, really.  You can get cheap ceramic tile for less than $3 a square foot.  If I had to guess, I’d bet that the pennies are comparable to that price though.  Maybe you could even design a mosaic of some sort.  Lincoln’s bust in pennies surrounded by nickels for a background, perhaps.

What’s next?  Wallpapering with $1 bills?  That might look kinda cool.

Image credit: Penny Floor: Hotel Congress by cobalt123, on Flickr