Alas, dear penny, you served us well.
We picked you up, you gave us luck.
We gave you to others in exchange for their thoughts.
And remember when we pondered whether dropping you from the Empire State Building could kill a pedestrian? That was fun. (More on that later.)
Now you are dead — but not gone (more on that later, too) — at the wizened age of 232. When polished, you look as young as when you were first minted, but you are worth less to us now, and we've moved on to greater expenses. The nation once used you to pay Union soldiers in the Civil War; now, you barely buy a gumball (and only in bulk!).
Like nearly all Americans, you descended from an immigrant, the British penny. Those coins were once so valuable that they were split into halves and even quarters — your late British cousins, the halfpenny and the farthing. In Britain, the coin's history goes back to the time when kings and queens had names like Offa and Cynethryth and Aethelred the Unready, and your name likely traces its lineage from the German for pan — pfanne, for pan, which evolved to pfennig, for penny.
The first one-cent coin in the United States rolled off a private mint in 1787 and wasn't called a penny. It was the fugio cent — fugio for "fly away" in Latin, signifying time flies. The 100% copper coin was inscribed with the surprising words, "mind your business," more a take on "penny wise, pound foolish" than an admonition against nosiness.
The U.S. minted its first official penny in 1793. Abraham Lincoln was pictured on the coin starting in 1909, to honor the centennial of his birth, the first time a president's image graced U.S. currency. The words "In God We Trust" were added at the same time. Ever the trailblazer, you, the humble penny, were the first to carry those words before Congress added it to all currency and made it the national motto almost a half-century later.
Now, at just 2.5% copper and the rest zinc, you can't even beat the cost of your own production, according to the U.S. Mint, which says it took 3.69 of you to make only one more in 2024.
Although we shall not meet any new pennies, we know you will hang around for another 30 years or so, because that's the typical lifespan of a coin, according to the U.S. Treasury.
So, luckily for us, we'll still have the perfect coins to put in our penny loafers in the 2050s, when we can expect them to cycle back in style. (In the 1930s, young people put money in their shoes for emergency pay phone calls, and thus the Weejun was born. Maybe someone will design a stylish cellphone shoe before the penny disappears?)
Meanwhile, you live on in other ways. We will most certainly celebrate you aphoristically, and this is where the penny drops. We will always be in for a penny, in for a pound. We will proudly trade pennies for thoughts while continuing to give our own two cents' worth. We will still pinch you, because a penny saved is, as ever, a penny earned. We will put a shiny penny in a bride's shoe for luck.
James Geary, author of The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism, says the penny is the perfect coin for these little pearls of wisdom.
"The penny lends itself to aphorisms because they are both small — the aphorism is the shortest form of literature, and the penny is the smallest monetary denomination," Geary says.
Yes, you are small but mighty. Yet we will never kill anything with you, from the Empire State or any other tall building. Your dimensions — three-quarters of an inch thick and weighing less than a tenth of an ounce — are better suited to flipping and fluttering in the air than reaching fatal velocity.
As the Mythbusters demonstrated, the penny-drop myth isn't worth a dime. But, at 10 cents, the dime is at least profitable to mint.
Along with the dime, your survivors include the nickel and the quarter.
Rest well, sweet penny.
Copyright 2025 NPR
