2009 Penny Redesign
2009 Penny Front
So I wasn’t terribly shocked to find a brand new penny in my hand upon receiving change for the breakfast I purchased this morning.. I was however shocked to see that they have been completely redesigned!!
Apparently 2009 was the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth and as such four new designs were commissioned and released to celebrate that as well as the 100th anniversary of the production of the Lincoln cent (penny).
I have to think that Lincoln would be embarrassed…
click to enlarge
The front design is the same as it was, but the reverse has 4 new designs apparently featuring four major aspects of President Lincoln’s life; his birth and childhood in Kentucky, his formative years in Indiana, his professional life in Illinois, and his Presidency in Washington, D.C as seen to the right.
I’m okay with the first two.. The log cabin and the rail-splitter designs are nice and seem appropriate to me. The last two are also nice designs but I question how those images were more relevant to Lincolns life than say; the Emancipation Proclamation, or the Lincoln-Doublas Debates on the topic of Slavery. or something related to the Gettysburg Address maybe? etc..
I’m just not sure that a picture of the Capitol cluttered by scaffolding was a good salute to Lincoln’s life.
But most importantly; Dear god, WHY?! … why do this? Amid all the government bailouts, corporate bankruptcies, and an economic down turn to rival that of the great depression, how much money did the government blow to redesign those coins?
No one forges the penny so why redesign it? Did the old designs some how fail? Not only that but these 4 new designs during 2009 are mandated to be further redesigned again in 2010 to a permanent design.
Is this some effort to instill value in an almost valueless coin? I’m sure all the numismatists will appreciate it.. Or maybe it’s bizarro feel good tactic by the government to cheer us up? I dunno.. But the amount of money that was bound to be put into this redesign process seems silly. Especially in an age where the penny seems largely pointless. Most people don’t stop to pick pennies up off the ground..
To be fair; No they aren’t worthless.. think how much everything would go up if you had to round up to the nearest nickel.. but still..
At one point (prior to 1982) all US pennies actually had a metal content that at market value was worth more than face value of the coin. Now however, all pennies are 97.5% zinc with only 2.5% being copper (coated over the zinc) and as such have an intrinsic value of $0.0028… So 0.28% of face value..
According to the US Mint the costs to producing and shipping already designed one-cent (penny) coins during the fiscal year 2007 was $0.0167 per penny.[ref] That doesn’t count the cost of redesign..
$0.0167 to produce a coin worth $0.0028, with a face value of only $0.01.. Dear god no wonder we are in debt..
So, 5 billion pennies in circulation worth $50 million dollars, cost the government $70 million to make.. For those of you who are really bad at math, thats $20 million dollars wasted..
I have to think even Lincoln would be ashamed..
How many of each are going into circulation? I have one and this is the first time i have ever seen one 5-12-10. Lincoln standing near the lincoln memorial. Are these going to be rare? Dave
Very well stated. I agree completely.
get a life buddy change is good, i think the new pics look great!!
Ah yes.. being told to get a life by someone who has nothing better to do than troll other peoples blogs and make snarky comments.. awesome..
If you’d bother to pull your head out for a second and read what was written, it’s not about how they look.. it’s about the cost to remake them..
I like them, however I do agree that at this time the cost to remake them might have been bad timming. What I do know for fact, from some friends who work in the Banking system, copper pennys are going to be very rare! Uncle Sam is melting them down as they come back. Same with silver. Been going on for the last 10 years.
Pinchbeck (n) 1. an alloy of copper and zinc used to imitate gold in cheap jewelry.
2. something that is counterfeit or spurious
I just got a new 2010 penny. You can scratch the copper off the surface! This is just worthless play money. Pennies minted before 1982 are 95% copper and worth $.02! An ounce of silver used to be worth a dollar now it’s worth 20+
Well, I like the 2009 pennies, and the other commemorative coins that the U.S. Mint has produced recently. Remember that the dies used to make coins wear out, and have to be replaced. I doubt that one die would last for an entire year’s production of a coin. So….the only cost would be the design of alternate dies for 2010.
In addition, the coins teach history in a very effective way, capturing the imagination of kids drawn to collect them. By the way, the under-construction Capitol building teaches an important lesson: that the republic survived a horrible civil war and continued to build the primary symbol of that republic – the seat of government.
I’m sure many taxpayers think it’s inappropriate that they should have to pay for anything artistic or aesthetically pleasing – stamps, coins, public buildings, parks, or whatever. Perhaps they think we should strict to the drab, strict utilitarianism that the Soviets espoused. Not me – I think that money spent on art and beauty, is money well spent.
-Joe-
I agree with Joe. Even though we are in debt as a nation and there is a lot of economical hardships that we could really use the money for, its seems to me that even something as “worthless” as the penny could (and in my book WILL) be seen as a very VALUABLE piece of history. I am an avid penny collector and though pennies may not physically be worth much, they truly mean the world to me. Why critisize something they really have no control over?? It seems to me that in doing so could be an incrediable waste of valuable time that could be spent doing other things like actually learning the history of our nation and taking a couple of seconds to enjoy the art and beauty that our country’s leaders are trying to offer… Who? A bunch of complainers!
Yeah.. why bother learning history from something as archaic and uninformative as say, a book.. All we need are pennies!
I think its important to celebrate a historic leaders 100 in an artistic and fun way but theres better ways to do that that don’t coast over 20 million dollars and don’t make fun of typos plz i’m only 14.
The day I don’t make any typo’s, I’ll make fun of you.. until then.. mum’s the word.
Just like to add, that those pennies deteriate very fast, by now most are in bad shape.. just 2 years later.