Whenever I get a bronze coin, I drop it into an earthenware jar on top of my icebox. After a couple of years, the jar has filled up with one- and two-penny coins. This afternoon I decided to turn my treasure into paper. I poured everything into a strong plastic bag and took it to a bank not far from my home in Reading. There I learned that they did not have a machine that counts coins. Instead, they gave me a bunch of small plastic pouches into which I should put the coins. Of course, I had to count them first. For bronze coins, each pouch should contain one pound’s worth. So, I went back home and counted the coins before stuffing them into pouches. I expected I had between ten and fifteen pounds’ worth of coins, but after a bit less than an hour and thirty minutes I had only eight pouches and some loose change. Then I walked back to the bank. As it turned out, I earned my own money at the rate of about four pounds an hour, which is below the minimum wage. The moral?