A sense for cents: Coin experts react to President Trump's plans to end penny production
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COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. — The first thing that Caroline Turco will say when asked about the penny, is that there is no such thing.
“We have never made pennies in the United States,” said Turco, the of the American Numismatic Association’s Money Museum in Colorado Springs. “We have always made cents.”
The future of the one cent coin is currently in question after President Trump announced on social media during Super Bowl LIX that he had instructed the U.S. Treasury to quit producing pennies.
Debates about the penny are nothing new. The cent coin has been on the chopping block for years, surviving propositions form both sides of the aisle, including President Barack Obama in 2013 and Senator John McCain in 2017.
As penny pundits debate the potential impacts and legality of the decision, some numismatists (people who study money) like those at the Money Museum are reflecting on the historic, economic and cultural import of the cent, a coin both Mudd and Turco expect to remain in American minds — and couch cushions — for years to come.
Video: Chase McCleary, Rocky Mountain PBS
Turco argued that despite the facts that the penny has a “negative seigniorage” (its value is worth less than its cost of production) and that the U.S. Mint lost over $85 million on penny production last year, many still cling to the turns of phrase like “a penny for your thoughts” and cultural touch points such as “penny candy” associated with the cent, making it harder to let go.
Douglas Mudd, the museum’s director and curator at the museum, pointed to several more reasons nixing the Lincoln has been difficult, such as pushback from zinc lobbyists threatened by the thought of losing 3.2 billion pennies worth of production each year.
“If you make zinc for a living and zinc is the majority of the penny… it makes sense that you would want to keep the zinc moving,” said Turco.
There are two agencies responsible for producing money in the United States. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is responsible for printing currency notes (Federal Reserve notes), while the U.S. Mint is in charge of coinage.
Both the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the U.S. Mint fall under the purview of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, now headed by Trump appointee Scott Bessent.
Colorado is an important place for American coin production. The Denver Mint is one of just two federal mints that still produce circulating coins (the other is in Philadelphia). With 54 coin presses, the Denver Mint makes 40,500 coins per minute.
The one cent coin was one of the first coins produced by the U.S. Mint after the agency’s founding in 1792. The first copper cents, also known as “Large cents” were almost 50% larger than today’s counterparts and were made of pure copper.
Benjamin Franklin is credited with designing the first penny a few years earlier. The “Fugio cent” or the “Franklin cent” included a sun and sundial with the message “Mind Your Business” on one side and the words “We Are One” encircled with chain link on the opposite.
However, the first coin officially produced by the U.S. Mint was the “Flowing Hair cent,” featuring Lady Liberty’s profile on the face and the words “One Cent’ surrounded in chain link on the reverse, similar to the Fugio cent.
The nickname “penny” derives from the U.S.’s British roots.
“The ‘penny’ was produced by England, it was a British coin,” said Mudd. “We were an English colony, and we used ‘pennies’ to start with.”
The one cent coin evolved over the centuries, gradually growing smaller, changing designs (Flying Eagle, Indian Head, Lincoln) and shifting in material make-up. What was once 100% copper is today only 2.5% copper. Approximately 98% of the one cent coin is zinc, covered only by thin copper plating.
Adjustments to the cent’s size and structure were made in an effort to lower the unit cost of production. According to Mudd, it cost about three-quarters of a cent to print a penny before the Civil War; in 2024, it cost about 3.69 cents.
“This whole idea of changing the composition to lower the [unit cost], and at the same time maintaining [the coin’s] look, is totally inherent in the concept of money,” said Mudd.
“There is the tool of money, and then there is the artifact of money,” said Turco, “so I think the penny completely is a nostalgia-based object.”
Some advocates for the penny are concerned about price rounding, such as executive director for America for Common Cents (ACC), who argued in 2009 that instances where prices were rounded up might “negatively impact working families” through their day-to-day purchases. The ACC is a lobby group dedicated to keeping the penny in circulation.
The American cent watched plenty of penny counterparts disappear throughout its tenure. Sweden stopped production of the one and two öre in 1972. New Zealand and Australia got rid of their one and two cent coins in 1990 and 1992, respectively, and New Zealand eliminated their five cent coin in 2006. In 2012, Canada halted its penny production.
New Zealand, Australia and Canada all use a system of rounding up and down to the nearest ten cents and five cents, which Turco said would likely be the U.S.’s system if the penny is eliminated. However, only around 16% of consumer payments were made in cash last year, so Turco said few people would feel the absence immediately, a belief drawn from personal experience.
Turco is married to an active member of the U.S. Military, and she has lived on bases around the globe.
“The Department of Defense ruled in 1980 that we would no longer be using cents in any of our U.S. overseas bases… because it was not cost effective to ship it overseas to that small base for that small group of Americans to continue to use,” said Turco.
“I lived on a military base in Japan… we lived there for three years, and I never noticed.”
Turco added that the United States has retired a number of denominations in the past. The $5,000 bill and the $10,000 bill were both recalled in 1969 during the Nixon administration, and the half-cent coin, the two cent coin and the three cent coin –– also known as the trime –– were all terminated before the 20th century.
Both Mudd and Turco said that unlike the trime, the penny would not be disappearing anytime soon. An article published in The New York Times last year noted that there are 240 billion pennies scattered across the U.S., or $7.24 for ever person in the country.
“The penny isn’t really making financial sense anymore. The nickel probably isn’t making financial sense anymore… but when you’re considering getting rid of the penny, you have to remember that the artifact will stay,” said Turco.
In 2024, the unit cost to produce one nickel was 13.8 cents.
Turco said she still teaches her kids to look for heads-up pennies on the ground, and when face-down, she instructs her kids to flip the pennies around for good luck.
As a lifelong coin collector and now professional numismatist, Mudd values the history of the penny more than the coin’s denomination.
“I collect ancient coins… that haven’t been made for centuries or thousands of years, but there’s still a fascination in them,” said Mudd.
“The economics of reality have moved past the cent, but that doesn’t mean the cent is going to be dead.”
Type of story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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