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On Sunday I wrote about the demise of MTV Music. Today, it is the penny. Much like MTV, I haven’t really used a penny in decades, so it’s unclear why this resonated in my soul, but it did and so here I am writing about it. Growing up, we were not wealthy. We saved our coins and one of the gifts I remember giving out to my cousins for Christmas one year was a jar of pennies for each of them that I’d saved through the year and cut out a Flintstone cartoon to glue on the top.
“Penny for your thoughts.” “See a penny. Pick it up. All day long you’ll have good luck.” Pennies were a gift. A jar. A lone one. Luck. And now that luck has run out.
Pennies in the US were first created in 1793 and were engraved by hand. There have been several iterations through the 232 years of existence. My personal favorite is the “wheaty” penny— maybe because they were old, but I could still find them as a kid.
Pennies had issues throughout the 19th century, too. The War of 1812 caused a copper shortage and in 1943, they switched to aluminum because they needed copper for ammunition. That year they accidentally did a few in bronze. If you find one of those, they are going for 1.7 million at auction. A penny could be worth a whole lot of thoughts if you find one in bronze…
Today it costs 3.69 cents to make a penny. So I get while that doesn’t make… sense. But it is still a bit sad to say goodbye to the penny. Granted, there are still approximately 240 billion pennies in circulation, so I imagine we’ll see them around for a while longer. I’m going to try to mark each occasion I have to use a penny from now on so that I can memorialize the moment of the last penny I ever use.
Sources:
AARP. “Take a Look Back Behind the History of the Penny.” AARP.org, AARP. Content accessible via AARP page source and summary.
Goodbye, Penny: What the End of the Coin’s Production Means for Customers and Businesses. Time.com, Time.
Associated Press. “US Mint Presses Final Pennies as the 1-Cent Coin Gets Canceled.” WFLX.com (reporting AP dispatch), 12 Nov. 2025.
Engle, Jeremy. “The Penny Is Dead. Will You Miss It?” The New York Times, 17 Nov. 2025.
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JAN
2026