The responses so far reminded me, as a kid, I would always pick up any pennies I saw. It wasn't until I was at MassArt that I bent to pick up a penny and a friend shrieked, "No!!!!" so I stopped and looked at her, and said, "What the heck?"
"Only pick up pennies if they are face side up, otherwise it's bad luck, not good!"
As a perpetually broke student, I said, "Pennies are pennies - and it's already in my pocket, so neither side up!"

That was the first I heard of that one, but she is Italian, with a lot of superstitions passed along from her immigrant grandmother!

One my grandmother's cousin told me once made no sense to me whatsoever, at a holiday gathering, I was nibbling nuts from the nut dish that was set out for that purpose. She looked at me quite seriously, and said, "If you keep eating nuts, your nose will turn up!" which I thought would be interesting, not alarming, and pretty darned unlikely!