> > I don't understand the difference between the two first choices in today's poll. How is a penny heads up worth any more than a penny tails up? It can be turned over, can't it?
>
> It may be a cultural thing... there's a superstition here that says if you find a penny heads' up and pick it up, you'll have good luck for the rest of that day... but if you find a penny heads' down and pick it up, you'll have bad luck.
>
> I wonder if that's strictly an American thing?

It sounds definitely like a cultural thing. I had no idea about this. There is certainly no such superstition in Finland.

By the way, the closest coins corresponding to your pennies ($0.01) are the 1 and 2 euro cent coins (worth about $0.012 and $0.024 currently), and these are very rare in Finland, particularly the Finnish ones. The Finnish ones are so *EXTREMELY* rare that collectors are paying over 100 times their face value to get ones, and they're even still legal tender!
The reason? Way back when the euro was first introduced, the Finnish bank made its most idiotic decision ever: The 1 and 2 cent coins, while still recognised as legal tender, were cut off from the circulation in Finland. All cash sums are always rounded off to the nearest 5 cent coins, to prevent customers from ever getting 1 or 2 cent coins from anywhere else than banks.
I may be patriotic but this is one thing that I feel Finland does wrong and every other euro country does right.