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President Trump has asked Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent to direct the U.S. Mint to stop making the penny. Pretty soon, we’ll all be penniless.

Some habits are hard to break. Last week, on two occasions, as I walked along, I saw pennies on the ground. Both times, I stopped, bent down, and picked up the pennies. Although the penny is not all that valuable these days, my conscience wouldn’t let me pass those pennies by.

I’m not a superstitious person, but many think that to find a coin lying on the ground, particularly if the coin is “heads up,” is a sign of good fortune. Sort of like a lucky penny. I picked the two coins up, but besides the fact that I was two pennies richer (Hallelujah!), there was no more benefit.      

The official name of the penny, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, is the “one-cent piece” and was introduced into our monetary system in 1787. Originally, it was designed by Benjamin Franklin, but the official minting of the penny was in 1793 in Philadelphia.

In the beginning it was 100% copper. Of course, today, its copper content is only 2.5%. The penny, these days, consists of 97.5% zinc, with the remainder copper.

The most significant event in the manufacturing of the penny happened in 1909. That was the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln and his likeness was put on the face of the penny. To be honest, if I want a picture of Honest Abe, I prefer the $5 bill.

“A Penny for Your Thoughts” has a long history. Sir Thomas More might have used the phrase all the way back to 1522. I’ll paraphrase how it came to be. More said that we often see someone whose face shows the mind of someone seriously thinking and we might ask, “A penny for your thought.”       

That, of course, was when a penny, or pence, in the case of the British Sir Thomas More had much more value than our penny does today. A U.S. penny for today’s thoughts might reflect upon the shallowness of our thinking.

Many times I have been checking out at a store and the cashier might ask, “Do you have a penny?” If I had had the penny, I would have used it and my response goes right over their head. I’ll say, “No I don’t have any sense!” Get it? Cents!

Will you miss the penny if our government stops minting them? Not for a long time. There, currently, are 114 billion pennies in circulation; about 60% are said to be in various forms of storage. Like Piggy Banks or would they be called Penny Banks? Just putting in my “two cents!” Actually, stopping the minting of pennies will save the U.S. money. To mint a penny costs about 3.5 cents.

Although the value of a penny is very low, there are a few that would be worth picking up. For instance the 1943 D-Lincoln Bronze Wheat Penny (that’s quite a description) is worth $2.3 million dollars! It was made during WWII when copper was not used for making the penny because of its value to our war effort. During that short period of time pennies were made of steel.

However, a few were, mistakenly, made of bronze and are extremely rare and very valuable. I guess that’s why I do not pass up the opportunity to pick up a penny. It might be a 1943 D-Lincoln Bronze Wheat Penny, but alas, I’ve yet to be so fortunate.

Well, that’s my “two cents” on the penny. You may be thinking, “Your thoughts aren’t worth a penny!”