When young Ben Franklin landed in Philadelphia after the long trip from Boston in the 1700s, he was ravenously hungry, as he writes in his famous “Autobiography.”

So, he went into a bakery and asked for three pennies’ worth of bread. He was handed, he tells us, “three great Puffy Rolls,” which he started eating as soon as he was out the door.

Well, it’s going to be tough — in fact, impossible — to top that historic buy, given that our venerable one-cent coin is about to vanish from our pockets and sock drawers.

Yes, the U.S. Mint says it won’t be making any of the little copper coins after this year, which means that a chapter of our history is closing.

Though it is hard for younger folks to imagine, we used to be able to buy stuff with the soon-to-be-defunct penny.

Once, a kid could

See Full Page