By Richard Rubin
PHILADELPHIA -- The first coin of the realm reached its last moment.
The U.S. Mint struck the final five U.S. pennies Wednesday afternoon, ending the country's 232-year history of making one-cent pieces.
"All right everybody, this is the last one," U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach said before pushing the button that formed President Abraham Lincoln's image on a gleaming planchet. "God bless America, and we're going to save the taxpayers $56 million."
Treasury officials created Wednesday's artisanal batch of pennies months after the Mint's 12-pennies-per-second production ended. They all bear a special omega mark above Lincoln's shoulder. Worth far more than 1/100th of a dollar, the pennies were closely guarded by a Mint police officer once they emerged from the machine.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was scheduled to attend, but he was a late scratch, leaving Beach, a former Georgia state senator, to claim a historical footnote. The last equivalent event, he said, was the end of the half-cent in 1857.
Technically, these final coins are circulating pennies, produced without the special finishes used for collectors' items. But these last cents won't show up on the sidewalk or in the supermarket. The Mint plans to auction them, with proceeds going to the government.
The U.S. began producing pennies in 1793, featuring a female figure of Liberty on the front and a linked chain on the reverse. That controversial design invoked slavery to some citizens, and it was quickly replaced.
Lincoln's visage took over the front of the coin in 1909 as the country celebrated the 100th anniversary of his birth. Lincoln, of course, still has the $5 bill.
Earlier this year, President Trump ordered the Treasury Department to stop producing pennies. The move eliminates money -- and saves money.
Each penny -- 2.5 grams of copper and zinc -- costs 3.7 cents to make. The Mint made more than three billion as recently as fiscal year 2024. The change will save the federal government $56 million a year in production costs, according to the Treasury Department, which has the authority to decide how many pennies to manufacture. The Mint will still make some special pennies for collectors.
The penny's demise comes as rising nominal price levels over the past two centuries have eroded the value and utility of the one-cent piece and as transactions shifted away from physical money. Cash usage shrank to 16% of payments in 2023 from 31% in 2016, according to the Federal Reserve. Cash payments are concentrated among poorer and older Americans.
Pennies will remain legal tender, so they still be used or exchanged for other cash. And they are still floating around. The government estimates that 300 billion pennies are in circulation.
But that is circulation in name only. Pennies quickly migrate from banks to cash registers to sock drawers, and in the past two months, they have become increasingly hard to find.
"You're just at this death spiral, essentially," said Austen Jensen of the Retail Industry Leaders Association, whose members include Walmart and Dollar General.
Rounding is an obvious but imperfect -- and not necessarily legal -- solution to a lack of pennies, according to retailers. For one thing, stores aren't legally allowed to set different prices for customers using the food program known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. They can't simply charge $2.49 to customers with SNAP cards and $2.50 to people paying cash. State laws in some places can also complicate rounding.
"It has become so acute because of the legal uncertainty here," Jensen said.
Retailers can't just price everything in 5-cent increments, either, because state sales taxes quickly wreck that math.
"Stores need either pennies or the ability to round up or round down to keep transactions flowing," said Jeff Lenard of the National Association of Convenience Stores, which is pressing Congress to pass legislation that legalizes rounding.
Canada ended penny production more than a decade ago with a more gradual phaseout than the abrupt U.S. version.
Already, less than half of the Federal Reserve's coin-distribution locations are still filling orders for pennies, causing cascading problems at fast-food restaurants and convenience stores.
On Wednesday, though, just around the corner from the Mint's five special coins, pennies remained plentiful at Starbucks. Four ordinary ones yielded exact change for a $4.81 order -- and they aren't headed for auction.
Write to Richard Rubin at richard.rubin@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 12, 2025 16:11 ET (21:11 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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