And more than 70 percent are likely to pick them up if they see them - especially if they’re lying heads up, said to be good luck. Polls suggest that a slight majority of Americans are traditionalists who just like seeing pennies around - so they’re against getting rid of them. Some people, however, may be far too dismissive of the little coins. With production and distribution costs, government figures show a loss of roughly $50 million each year from making the pretty penny. “The fact that it costs more to produce them than they’re worth, and yet we’re still doing so, is to me yet another piece of evidence that we should put a greater limit on what we trust government to do for us,” says Dean Stansel, a senior research fellow in economics at Southern Methodist University and formerly an economics professor at Florida Gulf Coast University.įor one thing, the pennies aren’t really copper, Since 1982, they’ve been almost 98 percent zinc, with a little copper thrown in for good looks and tradition. The wheat penny, so called because two stems of wheat frame an all caps “ONE CENT” on the back, with the Latin inscription “e pluribus unum” above and a “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” below, was produced between 1909, the first year Abraham Lincoln also appeared on the front of the pennies, and 1958, when the design changed.ġ943 1C Lincoln Cent (wheat, zinc-coated steel) And it shouldn’t be that hard to do, especially for baby boomers who might inherit some coins from parents who kept some from their childhoods.

“If you had a good collection of wheat pennies, for example, you could have something worth real money,” he notes - from hundreds or thousands of dollars on up. Hornberger has bought and sold pennies that have increased in value, sometimes dramatically, from almost every era and year since 1793, he says. “Most people are too impatient to collect them, but I started as a child,” says George Hornberger, 63, co-owner with his wife, Eleanor Hornberger, of South Florida Coins & Jewelry in Lake Worth.

“It is what it is,” says Dollar Store manager John, who asked not to be identified by his last name, in Lee County. “I hate them,” says Gloria Jordan, owner and chef of the celebrated Café Napoli in Fort Myers.

“I tried to eat one when I was a kid, and swallowed it without choking, or better, dying,” says Beth Preddy, a Neopolitan marketing expert. It doesn’t make them particularly appealing to some users of the coin, these days. With almost 330 million American citizens, that means the per capita ratio of pennies to Americans is about 393 to one. Mint has produced about 290 billion pennies with some nine designs, of which roughly 130 billion remain in circulation, according to the American Numismatic Association. Since the presidency of George Washington, the U.S. By the time the cent entered formal production, however, its weight and size had been reduced, and another artist was brought in to design the coin.įour years ago, in 2015, exactly 222 years after the chain penny appeared in 1793, one of them sold at auction in Orlando to an anonymous collector for $2.5 million. Patterns with these designs were struck towards the end of 1792.

This design has been traditionally ascribed to a British artist named William Russell Birch. Reverse: Denomination in wreath, fraction (1/100) below. Obverse: Head of Liberty with flowing hair facing right, date below. That design was quickly scrapped after some people complained that the chain signified slavery as well as 13 linked states, formerly colonies, historians say.īut scrap heaps, or for that matter the cracks in a couch, the bottom of pants pockets or purses, the supermarket parking lot or the jar of unwanted change, especially those with pennies in them, can become treasure hoards. They were likely worth about 14 cents in today’s dollars, engraved with a woman’s face and streaming hair on one side and a chain with 13 connecting links, to symbolize the 13 United States, on the other. Mint rolled out its first ever pennies on March 1, 1793, 11,000 newly minted coins hit the street - or more accurately, the unpaved road - serving as currency in 13 newly minted states. Two: a great deal more than they used to be worth. One not as much as they once were - you can’t actually buy anything for a penny anymore, not commonly and maybe not at all, not even hard candy or bubblegum.

1943 steel penny no mint mark