We are gathered here today to mourn my death.

I was born 1793 and died in May of 2025. That’s 232 years of public service. The cause of my death was announced as “lack of cost efficiency.”

Ben Franklin gave birth to me as one of the first coins produced in the United States from the Coinage Act of 1792. I was quite large back then, the size of a half-dollar. I had an image of a female with flowing hair stamped on the front of me symbolizing liberty.

In 1857, I was shrunk in size to save on the cost of birthing my brothers and sisters in multitudes. I wore an eagle as my face for several years and then I became an Indian head.

In 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt spearheaded a campaign to have an image of Abraham Lincoln stamped upon my face. I was made from copper until the metal became too expensive. So in 1982, they made me a mixed breed of mostly zinc with a bit of copper mixed in.

In the first half of the 20th century, a child could buy a piece of candy for just one of me. You could roll me into a wrapper to exchange 50 of my kind for nickels and dimes. Some lucky people won a lot of money when they dropped me into casino slot machines, and in the early 1960s I was featured inside a slot of a shoe called the penny loafer.

My popularity began to decline. I became a throw away. You could find me lost underneath car seats, suffocating between couch cushions or stepped on in parking lots. Nobody would bother to bend down to pick me up, especially if I was lying on my backside; sometimes, if I was Lincoln’s face side up you might pick me up as a good-luck charm.

No other coin has been mentioned in the English language as much as me.

“A penny saved is a penny earned.”

“He’s a bad penny.”

“Don’t be penny wise and pound foolish.”

“A penny for your thoughts?”

“It was worth every penny.”

“She’s a penny pincher.”

“That cost me a pretty penny.”

“He just got a lot of money, like pennies from heaven.”

A girl named Penelope was called ‘Penny.

No other coin was more useful in retail marketing. To pay the exact price of $7.99 for a pound of lunch meat, you would need at least four of me. No coin provided a psychological effect upon the consumer like I have done. Paying $9.99 for something sounds much less expensive than paying $10.

It’s estimated that one of my kind changed hands at least 1,000 times. If I was birthed in 1940, I have survived six or more wars and years of technological advances from telephones on the wall to cellphones, tube TVs to remotely operated smart TVs. I’m always mobile. If I could see through Lincoln’s eyes and speak through his mouth, I could tell you many secrets that might have changed American history.

I have been symbolized to mean humble beginnings and good fortune. A California family discovered over 1 million of my brothers and sisters dated before 1943 inside decaying wrappers hidden in their late father-in-law’s crawl space worth $10,000.

A man named Frank Nielsen from Arizona built a pyramid with over 1 million of me and my family. A memorial monument made of pennies was built in 1954 in Wisconsin that stands 15 feet tall and weighs 9 tons. It’s in honor of Dr. Kate Newcomb, who collected my kind from 48 states to help build a community hospital.

I belong to the brotherhood of most collected coins in the world. A California collector spent several million dollars for one of 10 birch pennies minted during George Washington’s presidency. Otha Anders, a Louisiana teacher, collected a half-million of me over 45 years. “Collecting pennies reminded me to stay thankful,” he said.

In 2015, Stephen Coyle, a student at the University of North Carolina – Charlotte, owed $110 in parking tickets. Before he paid his fine, he discovered that 80% of the money was distributed to other campuses, while his campus was in dire need of building repairs. As a form of protest, he paid his fine with 11,000 pennies.

But now, I will forever be known as a collector’s coin and a time machine memory in the minds of baby boomers. I’ll be a museum piece, and somewhere, there will be a few of me left lying at the bottom of wishing well fountains.

I was proud of the service I gave for nearly two and half centuries and I hope you believe that my value to the American people was worth much more than the one cent that was printed on the back of my head.

Author Rochelle E. Goodrich wrote, “Minutes may seem as worthless as pennies until you add them up. Neither should be wasted.”

So, I leave this world with a lesson of my legacy. “Some of the smallest things in life that may seem worthless can bring you the richest joys of your life.”

I thank you for my time spent in your piggy banks and in your purses, and I hope someday you’ll find me in the pocket of a pair of old pants or that you might hear me clanging around inside your clothes dryer.

It’s been a good life. There will never be another new me.

May I rest in peace.

Email Rich Strack at richiesadie11@gmail.com