Alas, dear penny — the last one was minted last week, ending a 232-year run. Though production stops, the coin won’t vanish overnight: pennies typically circulate for about 30 years, so they’ll be with us for decades.
Your story began overseas. The U.S. penny descends from the British penny and the German pfennig (from pfanne, pan). The first U.S. one-cent piece was a private 1787 fugio cent, a 100% copper coin stamped with “mind your business” and a reminder that time flies. The first official U.S. penny appeared in 1793. In 1909 Abraham Lincoln became the first president to appear on U.S. coinage, marking the centennial of his birth; “In God We Trust” was added then and later adopted as the national motto.
You helped pay Union soldiers and bought small things like gumballs in earlier decades. Today, however, your purchasing power is tiny. Modern pennies are 97.5% zinc with a thin copper plating; they cost more to make than their face value. In 2024 the U.S. Mint estimated it took about 3.69 cents’ worth of resources to produce a single penny.
Even as production ends, you remain culturally durable. You populate idioms — “in for a penny,” “a penny for your thoughts,” “my two cents,” “a penny saved is a penny earned” — and small rituals, from placing a shiny penny in a bride’s shoe for luck to the old penny-in-your-loafer practice for pay phones. James Geary, who studies aphorisms, notes the penny’s smallness makes it a perfect fit for short sayings.
And no, you were never the murderous missile of urban legend. Dropping a penny from the Empire State Building won’t kill someone on the sidewalk below. Your light weight and shape make you more likely to flutter than to reach lethal speed — a point proven by tests like those on Mythbusters. At least the dime remains profitable to produce.
Your circulation will taper, but you will linger in pockets, memory, language and collectors’ drawers. Alongside the dime, nickel and quarter, you retire a humble, long-serving piece of American life. Rest well, sweet penny.