Dug this October 2010 classic out of the vault because the U.S. penny remains one of America’s most expensive jokes. Back then, we reacted to the brand-new Lincoln shield design on the reverse of the penny, complained about the production cost (already over face value), and floated the idea that making them magnetic would only help thieves with big electromagnets.
Sixteen years later, the same arguments are still raging. It still costs more than one cent to make a penny, the shield design is still on every new one, and the “just abolish the penny” debate refuses to die.
Read the original untouched 2010 roast below (the cereal-box shield comparison, the production-cost rant, and the magnetic penny conspiracy). Then vote: Keep the penny or kill it?
Written by Jack Stropp (original post here)
Have you seen the new penny yet? I found one in my change yesterday and had to double check that I had not been given a foreign coin. Well, it had Honest Abe on the front and I know he won’t lie to me, but I was quite taken aback by the flip-side/posterior/reverse/tail of said currency unit.
It looks like a shield. The kind of shield given away for free in cereal boxes so that kids can pretend to be secret agents and shout, “Freeze - This is the Penny Police.”
I am kind of pissed at the US mint for spending so much money on money. In 2009 it cost 1.62 cents to make a single 1 cent coin compared to 0.80 cents per penny back in 2001. It seems strange that the people who make our money are not more careful about spending it.
I hear people suggesting that we abandon the penny since it is practically worthless, but they will be among the first to complain when their grocery bill is rounded up to the nearest nickel.
The increase in production cost is due to the rising cost of the raw materials: 2.5% copper and 97.5% zinc. President Obama is aware of this and has recently proposed a bill to change the composition of the penny to utilize a copper colored steel in order to reduce rising production costs.
Great plan Barack, lets make money magnetic so that thieves can steal it with a large, strategically placed electromagnet.
Ed. - Wow, that post ended abruptly without a punchline; who wrote that shit? Monty Python?
It still costs more than one cent to produce a single penny. 3.7 cents per coin
The Lincoln shield design introduced in 2010 remains the current reverse.
Debates about eliminating the penny (and rounding to the nearest nickel) continued every few years with Donald Trump finally ordering production of pennies to stop in November 2025.
The penny remains legal tender, if you can find one. Over 100 billion are still in circulation, probably in piggy banks or being hoarded by idiots
No magnetic steel pennies were ever introduced — the composition remains mostly zinc with a copper coating.
Aged like fine copper plating? Or like a coin that should have been retired years ago?
Reviving numismatic nonsense weekly. Follow @slapthepenguin on X for more roasts and daily nonsense. Comment: Do you still pick up pennies off the ground? Is it really worth the effort?
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.