Top 10 Things You Didn't Know About the Penny

Top 10 Things You Didn't Know About the Penny
A penny accidentally minted with the wrong alloy in 1943 just sold for the colossal sum of $1.7 million. Lets takes a look at the copper coin and some facts to make sense of all those cents
   

1.The Most Expensive Penny


The 1943 copper-alloy cent is one of the most enigmatic coins in American numismatics — and reportedly the most valuable Lincoln penny of all. Just 40 of the coins — probably created by accident, on copper-alloy one-cent blanks left in the presses in the wartime years when pennies were converted to steel — are known to exist. The first 1943 copper cent was sold in 1958 for more than $40,000. In 1996, another went for a whopping $82,500. But those sales pale in comparison with the latest: this week, a dealer in New Jersey sold his 1943 penny for a staggering $1.7 million. Their collection value makes 1943 copper pennies a prime target for counterfeiters: fakes are often made by coating steel cents with copper or altering the dates of 1945, 1948 and 1949 cents. How can you tell if your 1943 copper penny is real? Use a magnet. If the penny sticks, it's not copper. Better luck next time.

2.Land of Lincoln


The U.S. Mint had been producing one-cent coins since its founding in 1792, but the 1909 penny (which replaced the Indian-head cent) was the first coin on which a President's likeness appeared. Teddy Roosevelt commissioned the coin to celebrate the 100th birthday of Abraham Lincoln. While most people applauded the new design, former Confederate soldiers were upset at the prospect of carrying the image of Lincoln in their pockets.


3.My Two (Billion) Cents







Despite its declining buying power — and a call by some to drop it from circulation altogether — the penny is still the U.S.'s most popular coin. In 2008, 5.4 billion pennies were produced. That's more than twice the number of quarters minted and five times as many dimes. The Lincoln penny accounts for roughly half of all coins minted within a year. About 1,000 pennies are made per second.


4.The Penny Goes to War





Copper and zinc, the two metals found in a penny, were rationed during World War II, so the U.S. Mint had to come up with another way to produce its most popular coin. After much debate, the government decided on zinc-coated steel. The steel penny saved enough copper to make 1.25 million shells of ammunition. The gray-colored penny was manufactured between February and December 1943, but it encountered a number of problems: it rusted, it confused vending machines, and it was frequently mistaken for a dime. In 1944, a new metal combination was selected, and in 1946 production of the original prewar penny resumed.


5.What's a Penny Worth?








Sometimes pennies can be more trouble than they're worth. While a 1909 penny could send a postcard or buy a few eggs, in 2009 it can't even purchase itself: the U.S. Mint spends 1.4 cents on every penny it produces. "When people start leaving a monetary unit at the cash register for the next customer, that unit is too small to be useful," argued Harvard economics professor Gregory Mankiw in a 2006 Wall Street Journal article. Arizona representative Jim Kolbe introduced the 2002 Legal Tender Modernization Act to Congress, which would have eliminated the penny. The bill failed miserably.
6.Pennies Not Accepted


In response to the copper coin's declining value, some stores have stopped accepting it as a form of payment. In 2007, a New York City man was so incensed when a Chinese restaurant refused to let him pay for his dinner with 10 pennies (along with other cash) that he persuaded a state senator to draft a bill requiring pennies to be accepted everywhere and at all times. (The bill was not passed.) And in 2009, a number of Concord, Mass., shopkeepers banded together to protest pennies — on Lincoln's 200th birthday, no less.

While federal law states that coins are legal tender, it does not compel anyone to accept them. If a business doesn't want to take pennies — or a $100 bill, for that matter — it has a legal right to refuse them. So why does the government keep the penny around? The answer is simple: sales tax. Sales tax raises the price of an item to an uneven amount, requiring pennies to be given in change. Retailers need pennies to return to customers, banks need pennies to give to the retailers, and the Fed needs pennies to give to the bank. All so you can drop one on the sidewalk on your way out.
7.D Is for Denver


For much of its life, the penny was produced in three different mints. Most of the 1909 Lincoln pennies were produced in Philadelphia, where the presses stamped no identifying "mintmark" on the coins. A smaller number, produced in San Francisco, were marked by the single letter S. Coins minted in Denver — starting in 1911 — bore the stamp D. Production today is divided between two mints, Denver and Philadelphia, and has grown speedier: the U.S. Mint took more than two years to produce its first million coins, but today the Philadelphia Mint can make approximately that many in 45 minutes.
8.The Penny's British Heritage


Like so much else American, the name penny comes from England. The first modern English coin was the silver penny of Offa, the 8th century king of Mercia. By the 18th century — when the first U.S. coins went into circulation — Brits still used the word penny as the singular for pence, just as they do today. The coin's name derives from the Old English pennige, pronounced, roughly, penny-yuh.
9.Happy Birthday, Mr. Lincoln


To design the new Lincoln penny in 1909, President Teddy Roosevelt enlisted the artist Victor David Brenner, whose earlier Lincoln plaque he had admired. The design featured a Lincoln bust on one side and wheat shafts on the other. (In 1959, on the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's birthday, the grains were swapped out for a rendering of the Lincoln memorial.) The Lincoln cent marked the beginning of 100 continuous years of pennies featuring the words In God We Trust.

The new coin had another feature, however, that soon drew controversy: the artist's initials, V.D.B., were stamped prominently on the tail side. Public outcry prompted officials to pull the coins from circulation and strip the initials. The mere 484,000 monogrammed coins produced at the San Francisco mint — the famous 1909-S VDB — have been coveted collectors' items ever since. Brenner's initials were reinstated in 1918 and are now just barely visible under Lincoln's right shoulder.
10.What's Worth Less Than a Penny?


Pennies will buy you so little today that the concept of dividing them into even smaller change seems ludicrous. Not so back in 1786, when the U.S. Continental Congress approved the mill, describing it as the "lowest money of accompt, of which 1,000 shall be equal to the federal dollar." (The term comes from the Latin mille, meaning 1,000.) While the Federal Government never actually produced a coin worth one-tenth of a cent, some states and local governments issued mills made of such cheap materials as tin, aluminum, plastic or paper. By the 1960s, however, the coins had depreciated so much in value that their production was virtually abandoned.
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