Q. Can I give $0.01 Cdn tzedakah or do I have to use only American pennies now that ours are out of currency.
A. On question 1187 regarding the value of a prutah today, we wrote: “The value of a perutah according to the opinion of the Chazon Ish and Rav Chaim Noeh is 1/40 or .025 of a gram of silver, and according to the Masoro it is .0182 of a gram of silver (Masores Hashekel p.119, Be’er Chaim p. 207)”
At today’s (Sivan 2020) price of silver (about $0.55 U.S.D. per gram) it would result in $0.0125 or $0.0091, a bit more or less than a penny.
Although, the Canadian penny is out of circulation. it still has some value as a metal source (94% steel, 1.5% Nickel, 4.5% Copper), depending on the price of those metals. A Canadian penny when joined with others, will have the required prutah value, and count for tzedakah as shove kessef or value, since the receiver can collect them and sell them as metal.
Pennies that are rare, obviously can have great value.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as advised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit’a and Horav Aharon Miller Shlit’a