“A Penny for Your Thoughts”

Brian Caulfield

With the death of the penny, another traditional saying falls by the wayside. But the upside is that our thoughts may now be worth a nickel or more. Yet, with the expected inflation of our coinage—$9.99 sales will be rounded up— we’ll have to settle for old saws like “Not worth a plug nickel” or “one thin dime,” with a predictable impoverishment of the language.

How will we now save a penny in order to earn one? And will we be only “pound foolish” without the pretense of “penny wise”?

True, penny candy long ago gave way to the dollar-plus chocolate bar, but the cancelling of the little copper coin may have some other unforeseen effects. What will happen to the penny loafer, or the Beatles’ “Penny Lane,” or the Three Penny Opera? What of all those arcade crank machines that bend pennies into odd shapes for no other reason than it can be done?

On the other hand, the image of Lincoln won’t be dropped in public anymore, which is good since most of us today, no longer believing that a penny is worth picking up, are likely to just step on (or over) it.

I must confess that the end of the penny took me totally by surprise. Confining my attention mainly to Catholic news sites while working on the canonization of Blessed Michael McGivney (who was 12 years old when Lincoln was shot), I had not seen early warnings of the neat little coin’s demise. Yet when I heard that the last penny had already been minted, it felt as though something had been taken from me. I recalled the times when, as a New York City kid back in the 1960s, I bent to pick up a penny and then ran to Abie’s on First Avenue to grab a handful of stale, sweat-stained candies. Or the pennies we third-graders gave for the starving children of the missions, as Sister Helen shook a piggy bank singing “Empty Your Pockets, Boys!” to the tune of “Anchors Aweigh.” Going on Facebook that fateful, penniless day, I saw that many folks had posted heartbreaking paeans to the humble penny, with reminiscences similar to mine.

In the throes of all this nostalgia, it pains me to confess that a few days before the big news broke, I was getting ready to cash in a bunch of pennies at a local bank. I had already picked up a stack of paper penny rolls. You see, my wife and I recently moved from a house in Connecticut where we had lived for 24 years with two growing boys—and a good deal of clutter and stuff stashed and stowed here and there from basement to attic. We were shocked at all the things we had forgotten we owned. While clearing out the house, of course, we found a large number of coins hiding in drawers, tucked into seams of sofas and chairs, and sitting quietly in glass jars atop kitchen cabinets. Among the coins were a few dollars in pennies. Moving into our new, empty-nester home, we vowed to run a tighter ship and decided that the pennies had to go. What good could they possibly serve since we rarely carried coins anymore?

But after hearing that there would be no new pennies, we looked at our copper coins with more respect and granted them a reprieve. Whether they are worn, blackened, chipped or rubbed smooth, we now cherish these little cents, and give them a privileged place in their jars on the mantle, next to the Waterford crystal. As collector’s items, each one has a unique, indelible character, never to be effaced or replaced, and we are proud to possess such small things of such rare value.

In years to come, we plan to take down the jars when our hoped-for grandkids visit and tell them tales of penny candy and penny loafers and invent games of paying and trading and laughing in the silly and serious ways only grandparents and grandkids can concoct. The final play of each game will be an exchange of copper coins and the words, “A penny for your thoughts.” In this way, not a single cent will be lost.

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Ditching Cents Doesn’t Make Sense!

Vincenzina Santoro

“Money is the root of all evil!” So goes a popular American proverb. The Italians have a very different—and poignant—saying: “Senza soldi non si cantano messe!” (Without money Masses cannot be sung.)

As the Italian adage indicates, money is necessary for everyday life. Coins and banknotes have been in use for centuries in every country on earth. Economists define money as a medium of exchange, a standard of measurement, and a store of value.  When the lowly penny had much stronger purchasing power, it gave rise to the phrase “a penny saved is a penny earned.” Currencies—both coins and banknotes—also carry symbols of national identity, history, and sovereignty.

Inflation has eroded the value of money over time. As President Donald Trump recently discovered, the cost of producing a penny, which is 2.5 percent copper and 97.5 percent zinc, is now 3.69 cents. In a cost-saving move, the president ordered the minting of pennies to cease. The Philadelphia mint (one of three operating in the United States, the others being Denver and San Francisco) minted its last penny on November 12, 2025, thus ending 232 years of production. So too goes the image of our esteemed 16th President, Abraham Lincoln, who was the first US president to be featured on the obverse of a coin. This one, issued in 1909 to commemorate the centennial of his birth, replaced the Indian head penny in circulation since 1859.

While pennies are no longer being minted, they remain legal tender, will stay in circulation, and are not being phased out. According to the US Mint, the average life span of a penny is 30 years. The American Bankers Association has estimated that there are some 250 billion pennies in circulation. In fiscal year 2024 alone, the US Mint issued over 3.17 billion pennies as per its latest annual report.

Despite the large number of pennies outstanding, many may be stuck in glass jars or piggy banks because some people consider them a nuisance. However, they could return to circulation as shortages appear. Also, given that many older pennies bear a numismatic value, people may want to examine their hoards.

Eventually, stores will have to round their prices to the nearest five-cent mark as pennies become fewer. If prices are rounded downward, it will help the consumer but take a toll over time on the vendor’s bottom line. Some stores may opt to round up.

At least three other countries have parted with their lowest denomination coin. Canada ceased production of its one cent in 2012. Australia ended its penny coinage in 1990 and removed it from circulation two years later. The United Kingdom banned its lowest denomination half-penny production in 1984. The euro, a new common currency, was introduced in 2002 with seven banknotes and eight coins, the lowest denominations being the one- and two-euro cent coins. Today these coins have all but disappeared from circulation, and the five-euro cent coin has become scarce.

Could the US penny have been saved? Yes—and in the spirit of “a penny for my thoughts” here is how.

Today, the penny has become too expensive to produce because of the rising price of zinc and copper due to industrial needs. But this is not the first time the price of copper has affected penny production. During World War II, copper was needed for the war effort, and in 1943 the US Mint started minting pennies in cheaper steel with a slight zinc coating of only one percent. Could the same not have been done today?

Today’s “penny pinching” is one more phase of an ongoing reduction in cash usage for consumer transactions in favor of credit cards. None of the features of money mentioned above—exchange, measurement, value—characterize credit cards. Cards are merely utilitarian. The convenience to the consumer comes at the expense of the vendor who is forced to bear a transactional fee. Moreover, the enhanced use of credit cards has resulted in a striking rise in consumer debt. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which compiles the data, credit card debt outstanding in the third quarter of 2025 reached $1.23 trillion, up from $1.17 trillion a year earlier.

Currency does not permit an individual to go into debt. No cash, no purchase. Not so with a credit card, which allows indebtedness. Some individuals with excessively high credit card debt may find themselves on the road to bankruptcy.

Today the expression “a penny saved is a penny earned” no longer makes sense. But “to be penniless” has acquired more than one new meaning!

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