See a pin and pick it up and all day long you’ll have good luck!

Do you? Have you ever?

And if you do, why do you make the effort to bend down and pick up such a small metal object?

And when you have done so, have you ever been fortunate enough to experience any noticeable good luck?

Just wondering!

I do – and I’ve always done so – ever since I can remember.

I don’t know why, but I suppose it was something that members of the family did.

What I have always wondered is what most people did with all the pins they gathered over the years.

When I was of the age to wear a school uniform, I used to stick them into the left lapel of my blazer.

Why the left side? Did it have some occult significance?

Not really.

I suppose it’s because I’m right handed.

So what do you do with the pins you find?

I tend to pop them into a small wooden container which lives – amid a load of clutter – at the side of my desk.

So why do I do it – apart from the fact that I’ve always done it for as long as I can remember?

To be really honest, I don’t really know.

Some academics will argue that it’s got something to do with the mystical significance that metal held for our early Pagan ancestors.

I don’t know about that, but I do know that the next time I see the glint of a pin on the pavement – or wherever – it will end up in my little wooden container.

It’s what I should be doing to the various coins I occasionally find in the street, which tend only to be pennies.

I know that some of you will be wondering why I would deign to bend down and pick up a coin with as little value as a penny.

But then I do go back to a time when a penny had more spending value than it does now – and old habits die hard.

I do know that many younger people would not bother to pick up any such low value coins.

Quite the reverse!

I have witnessed youngsters in supermarkets to not bother to pick up their change if it was only in pence.

I have also been told that some of them, on leaving shops and stores, will actually fling such low value coins into the street.

They don’t want them cluttering up their pockets or wallets, apparently.

But is this true? Do they really? Or is this just another fanciful folk myth?

I prefer to follow the following rhyme, which is supposed to be derived from the “pin” superstition:

“See a penny and pick it up,

“And all day you’ll have good luck!”

This verse was aired in a recent TV documentary programme.

We are probably all aware of these words and have said them numerous times.

But how many of us – and I didn’t – know the rest of the rhyme:

“Pass it on to a friend, and your luck will never end.”

Laudable sentiments, but it involves the finder either giving money away to a friend, a good cause or merely popping it into a purse or wallet to be spent.

According to some traditions, however, you should hold on to any found money.

You should store it somewhere in your house.

This will, reputedly, bring you good fortune because “money attracts money”!

Perhaps I should find another wooden container to site somewhere in my house in which to store any found copper coinage.

This is assuming that when I do come across any pennies, I will actually pick them up.

I most certainly would, but then I don’t believe in the superstition that it is unlucky to pick up a coin which is “tails up”.

Some of you might know of this superstition.

Should you not be wearing your specs and you do pick up an unlucky “tails up” penny you can avoid any bad luck by putting the coin back on the ground.

But the bad luck will only be avoided if you place the lucky “face up” side uppermost.

Anyone who subsequently finds it can pick it up without incurring any possible ill fortune.

Here’s a great savings tip, talking about pennies.

If you start out with one penny and you double it, you end up with two pennies.

If you then double it the next day, you have four pennies.

If you keep on doubling your new daily amount, how long do you think it will take you to be a millionaire?

Get your calculators out – I think you’ll be amazed.