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Pennies: the end of production, and the million-dollar claims
Two things people ask about pennies right now, answered in the words of the Treasury and of the American Numismatic Association, the collectors' nonprofit. We don't list prices.
The end of the penny
“The federal government has stopped manufacturing new pennies, but the Federal Reserve will continue to recirculate the roughly 114 billion pennies currently in existence for as long as possible.”
“Over the past 10 years, the total production cost of the penny has risen from 1.3 cents to 3.69 cents per penny.”
“The penny will remain legal tender, meaning it retains its status as an acceptable form of payment.”
Misleading viral coin claims
The ANA's Reading Room wrote about them in April 2025:
“Recent online reports claim that certain cents are worth $124 million or that a 1976 bicentennial quarter is valued at $1.5 billion.”
“Such accounts are false or highly misleading.”
“He also notes that some misleading stories claim rare coins are still circulating, despite that genuine examples have not been in common use for decades.”
What the Mint's records do tell you about a cent, such as how many were made in a year and what it's made of, is on the cents page, with the 1943 steel cent and the 1982 metal change on their own pages.
Sources
- Penny Production Cessation FAQs. U.S. Department of the Treasury.
- Avoid Misleading Clickbait (The Reading Room, April 3, 2025). American Numismatic Association.