OLYPHANT — As the U.S. Mint prepares to produce the final pennies put into circulation early next year, the future of the copper-colored coin has sparked conversation among collectors and shop owners.
Months after President Donald Trump called on his administration to cease penny production, the U.S. Mint announced earlier this month that it made its final order of penny blanks — and plans to stop making new 1-cent coins after those run out, according to the Associated Press. There are about 114 billion pennies currently in circulation in the United States, per the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
The cost of making pennies increased by upward of 20% in 2024, according to the Treasury, with the production cost now nearing 4 cents per penny, according to the U.S. Mint. The Treasury expects an immediate annual savings of $56 million in reduced material costs, the Associated Press reported.
Congress, which dictates currency specifications such as the size and metal content of coins, could make Trump’s order permanent through law, per the Associated Press.
Coin collector Joe Miller, 79, of Scranton, doesn’t expect pennies to vanish from the retail landscape in the near future.
“Ten years from now, they’re still going to be floating around in the cash registers,” he said.
The final penny to roll off the assembly line will likely remain a mystery, Miller said.
“There won’t be any way to tell when the last penny is stamped,” he said. “With a paper bill, you can tell by the number when it was stamped.”
Miller doesn’t anticipate a huge outcry in the country as pennies become less prominent.
“Canada did away with their pennies a long time ago and nobody is complaining about it up there,” he said.
Maryann Ochman, manager of Ochman’s Coins & Jewelry in Dallas, wonders if rules associated with the penny will change after the end of production.
“As of right now, it’s illegal to melt them for the copper,” she said. “I’m very curious once they stop production and use of them if they will allow people to melt them for their copper value — that’s my main concern. It will be interesting if people who have been hoarding them for a long time will actually be able to get the 4 cents of what they’re worth.”
Ochman also noted the eventual phasing out of pennies will force retailers to adjust pricing.
“We do a lot of cash versus credit cards, so I guess we’ll have to round things up and down,” she said.
The end of penny production may also mark the end of a popular way to introduce the coin collection hobby to children, Ochman said.
Alan Snipes, owner of Alan Coins & Gold in Olyphant, sorts through inventory inside his store Thursday. (ROBERT TOMKAVAGE/STAFF PHOTO)
Scranton resident and coin collector Joe Miller sorts pennies by year inside Alan’s Coins & Gold in Olyphant Thursday morning. (ROBERT TOMKAVAGE/STAFF PHOTO)
Maryann Ochman, of Ochman’s Coins and Jewelry in Dallas, right, talks with Kevin Smith of Hallstead at the 58th annual Wyoming Valley Coin Club show at Oblates of St. Joseph Seminary in Laflin on Saturday, Feb 15, 2025. BILL TARUTIS / CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
“Pennies are the best way people get their kids started in collecting coins because it’s an inexpensive way,” she said. “I think just about every kid had somebody in their family give them a penny collection.”
Additionally, many customers have been asking Ochman for the 2025 version of pennies, she said.
“I heard they’re going for crazy money on eBay,” Ochman said. “We haven’t been doing anything like that because they’re not going to stop production until next year anyway.”
Ochman compared the renewed interest in the “Lincoln cents” to the excitement around the introduction of the state quarter program, which started in 1999.
“They’re really not worth more than face value,” she said of the quarters. “But one positive thing was it got people excited about coins again. It was something for kids to do and collect for fun.”
Miller — who has been collecting pennies for more than five decades — meticulously sorted the coins by years inside Alan’s Coins & Gold on East Lackawanna Avenue in Olyphant on Thursday. Some of them showed significant wear and tear from years of use.
“The reason the rare ones are disappearing is there are only so many and after a period of time they wear out and you can’t see any writing,” he said. “That was the bad thing about the copper pennies, they wore out real easily. The new pennies are made out of zinc with a copper coating — they’ll last another 25 to 30 years.”
Miller added collectors will likely be willing to splurge a little more to purchase specific pennies as fewer of the coins will be readily available.
“Now that pennies are going out of circulation, they’re going to be valuable to people,” he said. “They’ll pay $2 to $3 a roll for them because they want to keep collecting. If you check on eBay, the sellers are taking advantage of the fever going on right now about the penny. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the banks — they may quit giving them out because they can’t replace them anymore, because the government isn’t going to give them any more boxes of pennies. Anything prior to 1930 is worth looking at.”
Miller acknowledged many pennies from the 1920s and ’30s are nearly impossible to find, but stressed it’s still possible to acquire a valuable one.
“For collectors, pennies are the only thing you can still find in circulation and still come across a rarity,” he said. “Most of the silver coins are gone because the price of silver is $33 an ounce. If you have a quarter that’s worth $5, you’re not going to put it in a parking meter.”
Some common pennies from the ’20s and ’30s can be worth anywhere from about 15 cents up to $40, and rare ones can fetch $1,000 or more, Miller said.
Miller cautions people to take a look through their pennies before taking them to the bank.
“The average person is going to look at the jar of pennies and say ‘I better get rid of these because they’re not going to be good anymore,’ but that’s not true,” he said. “They’ll always be good.”
Alan Snipes, owner of Alan’s Coins & Gold, received many inquiries from customers since the news broke about plans to stop plating pennies.
“They see something on the internet and they always come in or call,” he said. “People called me about pennies … asking if they’re going to be worth more money, but we don’t know. Time will tell.”
Snipes feels ending production of the penny will be a positive move for the country, financially.
“We should have done it a long time ago,” he said. “We finally have an administration that is fiscally responsible. They want to save money and not spend money they don’t have to.”
While some may surmise halting production may be the death knell for the pennies, Ochman believes the increased attention on the coin could prompt more people to start collecting them.
“On Wednesday, a guy probably in his early 50s came in with 2009 pennies and said he never saw them before,” she said. “He probably never looked at his pennies until now because everybody’s talking about it. It’s making people look at their change again and that’s a positive thing.”