The Unknown History of Pennies

You probably know about Lincoln cent and maybe you think they are not important to you because they is almost worthless. But that is not true, Lincoln cents have been struck since 1909. So, they have a long history.

In 1905, U.S. hired Augustus Saint-Gaudens to work on a new mint design for pennies. He designed many coins and he designed Double Eagle, too. He decided to design Lincoln’s head on penny because it was Lincoln’s 100th birthday in 1909. In 1907, Saint-Gaudens passed away before pennies were minted. In 1909, U.S. started to mint them and called them Wheat pennies because their reverse has two wheat ears.

In 1959, Wheat pennies were replaced with Lincoln’s Memorial for Lincoln’s 150th birthday. In 2009, Lincoln’s 200th birthday, the government decided to mint four new reverse designs. In 2010, the government hired a new coin designer and minted the new pennies and called them Union Shield.

I think the Lincoln cent will stop being minted because the process of minting them is more expensive than one cent. In Canada, they stopped make them. So, maybe U.S. will stop minting them.