8 Things You Didn't Know About the Penny

I don’t like pennies.  They’re trivial and they make my hands smell.  When I mentioned that I’m all for the government fazing out these useless pieces of copper, my friend flipped out.  Because unbeknownst to me, he’s a penny collector.  He explained the long, storied, and actually fairly interesting history of pennies.  Here are a few things I learned:

1) The U.S. Mint has been producing pennies since 1793.

2) There is no “penny” in the U.S.  The term came from England.  Officially, what we call a “penny” is simply a “one cent coin.”

3) Ben Franklin designed the first penny along with coining (ha) the phrase “a penny saved is a penny earned.”

4) In 1909, Teddy Roosevelt put Lincoln’s face on the penny to commemorate the 16th president’s 100 year anniversary.  It was the first American coin to feature the likeness of a person.

5) The Lincoln penny was designed by Lithuanian sculptor Victor David Brenner.  His initials, V.D.B. appear on every penny under Lincoln’s shoulder.

6) It costs about 1.8 cents to make a penny today.

7) Due to the need of copper supplies during WWII, the U.S. Mint produced zinc-coated steel pennies.

8) In the 1980’s, U.S. military branches overseas got rid of the penny and rounded transaction to the nearest five cents.

So even though I may dislike pennies, I definitely have a different viewpoint of them now.  Do you know any cool penny facts?  Let us know in the comments section below!