1-cent coins

In the late 1960s, my sister and I could buy two Hershey's Kisses for a penny at a corner store. Today, if you buy them in bags, they cost about nine cents each.

By the early 1980s I was already complaining that one-cent coins were practically worthless—little more than pocket lint—and that we should get rid of them. At the time, most people paid for everything in cash, which made pennies a nuisance.

More than four decades later, with nearly 300% cumulative inflation, the one-cent coin is worth even less than it was back then.