THE U.S. MINTS ITS FINAL CENTS

The big story this week is the striking of the last U.S. cent. Len Augsburger was the first to pass an article along. Here's an excerpt from the Wall Street Journal - see the complete article online. Thanks also to Howard Berlin and others who sent reports. -Editor

The U.S. Mint struck the final five U.S. pennies Wednesday afternoon, ending the country's 232-year history of making one-cent pieces.

"All right everybody, this is the last one," U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach said before pushing the button that formed President Abraham Lincoln's image on a gleaming planchet. "God bless America, and we're going to save the taxpayers $56 million."

Treasury officials created Wednesday's artisanal batch of pennies months after the Mint's 12-pennies-per-second production ended. They all bear a special omega mark above Lincoln's shoulder. Worth far more than 1/100th of a dollar, the pennies were closely guarded by a Mint police officer once they emerged from the machine.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was scheduled to attend, but he was a late scratch, leaving Beach, a former Georgia state senator, to claim a historical footnote. The last equivalent event, he said, was the end of the half-cent in 1857.

Technically, these final coins are circulating pennies, produced without the special finishes used for collectors' items. But these last cents won't show up on the sidewalk or in the supermarket. The Mint plans to auction them, with proceeds going to the government.

The U.S. began producing pennies in 1793, featuring a female figure of Liberty on the front and a linked chain on the reverse. That controversial design invoked slavery to some citizens, and it was quickly replaced.

Lincoln's visage took over the front of the coin in 1909 as the country celebrated the 100th anniversary of his birth. Lincoln, of course, still has the $5 bill.

Earlier this year, President Trump ordered the Treasury Department to stop producing pennies.

Pennies quickly migrate from banks to cash registers to sock drawers, and in the past two months, they have become increasingly hard to find.

"You're just at this death spiral, essentially," said Austen Jensen of the Retail Industry Leaders Association, whose members include Walmart and Dollar General.

Rounding is an obvious but imperfect—and not necessarily legal—solution to a lack of pennies, according to retailers. For one thing, stores aren't legally allowed to set different prices for customers using the food program known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. They can't simply charge $2.49 to customers with SNAP cards and $2.50 to people paying cash. State laws in some places can also complicate rounding.

The laws are an unfortunate complication. That was the first coherent explanation I've seen on why some merchants are reluctant to round transactions without government guidance.

And speaking of laws, I haven't seen any law passed by Congress taking away the Mint's authority to produce the one-cent coin. So this is an Executive action that could theoretically be reversed. But that's unlikely given the economics, the longtime push to end the cent, and the lack of a public uproar over the decision. And this leaves the door open to producing non-circulating cents for collectors. The U.S. Mint Press Release (linked below) states that "The Mint will continue to produce numismatic versions of the penny in limited quantities for historical and collector purposes."

That image of Beach holding the coin in his fingertips is cringeworthy for any numismatist - that is not how one handles a rare coin. But it was a good photo-op in the moment.

The decision to make five special pieces echoes the clandestine creation of five 1913 Liberty nickels as that series ended. Will one deep-pocketed collector seek to purchase all five to parrot Col. E.H.R. Green's acquisition of all five 1913 Libertys? And who gets to auction them anyway? Will this be a direct government sale? -Editor