I’m not sure if you’ve heard from one of your many friends who work at the US Mint, but the last penny ever has been minted. That’s right – after a run of over 238 years, they’ve been making pennies since 1793, remember – the penny’s time is finally over, falling victim to increasing irrelevance, a fate that feels looming for so many of us.
There’s also the fact that pennies cost about 4 cents to make, so that’s not really a good return. That can’t be the only reason, though, as a nickel costs 14 cents to make! What the hell? A dime is a steal, with a production cost of only 6 cents, and even the quarter isn’t bad, at 15 cents. Hell, that’s only a penny more than a nickel! Think how much more money we could make if we made quarters instead of nickels! We’ll be rich! I should be King of the Treasury!
The Mint seems to have been hinting at the penny’s demise on their site via that little asterisk by the penny in their Full Family Line of American coins:
This is all fascinating and a big deal, numismatically, but we’re a car website, dammit. How does this affect cars? I mean, you haven’t been able to buy a car for a penny since, what, 1798, and back then a penny would get you a Murdoch Steam Carriage, two hogsheads of mead, and two quarter-hapennies in change, or something. But since then, what do pennies have to do with cars? Well, a few things, actually, which I will list now, so we can all appreciate the car-penny connections.
Penny Fuses
Okay, don’t do this, it’s incredibly stupid and dangerous, but this definitely is something people have been using pennies for with cars for years. The thinking is if you blow a fuse, you can jam a penny in there and the electrical whatever will work again, at least until whatever caused the fuse to pop in the first place happens again, only now instead of popping a fuse, your car catches on fire and you start to wonder why you thought it was so damn important to listen to your dumb podcasts while you drove.
Paying Traffic Tickets And Fines In Pennies
This is kind of a dickhead move, but it’s something that’s been happening for decades. Pissed-off people will choose to get “revenge” on “the system” by paying fines in massive wads of pennies, though usually all that gets accomplished is a really terrible work day for some poor clerk.
Patch Holes In Gas Tanks (at least in my Beetle)
I’m not exactly sure how common this is, really, but my own 1973 Volkswagen Beetle had this very thing: a penny used to patch a hole in the gas tank. The gas tank on a Beetle forms the floor of the trunk, so I can imagine how it happened; someone was loading something heavy and sharp, maybe a Moravian star made out of solid cast iron, dropped it, and punctured the tank. That’s possible?
Anyway, a penny is a good, cheap way to patch a little hole. I suspect this has been used in metal repairs countless times, in all sorts of cars. I can only prove it in one case, but still.
Tire Tread Test
This may be one of the more famous and useful intersections of car and penny. Here’s how it works: you take a penny, turn it upside down so Abraham Lincoln’s head is inverted from how most historians suspect it was usually oriented (scalp up, neck down), and stick it in between your tire’s treads.
If you can still see the top of Lincoln’s head, your tread depth is too low (2/32″ or less) and you should save that penny to get yourself some new tires.
Cars Covered in Pennies
This is another one of those things you see periodically – people covering their cars in pennies to give it a unique, and comparatively cheap-to-execute look.
In this example, the gentleman covered his 2000 Chevy Blazer in 51,000 pennies, for a total value of $510 and a weight penalty of about 281 pounds if most of the pennies were minted post-1982, which is when they went to zinc covered in a delicious copper shell, and weighed 2.5 grams, as opposed to pre-’82 pennies, which were all copper alloy and weighed 3.11 grams. Let’s assume a mix and say these all add, oh, 450 pounds or so.
Still, much cheaper than painting the car with paint, and I bet there’s a little bit of dent/scratch protection as well.
Penny Racers
Okay, finally, who remembers Penny Racers? I sure do – I wrote about them here a good while ago, and as far as I know, they’re the only toy car ever to feature a penny as a crucial component of the toy. Here’s the one I have, a little Baja Beetle version. I must have had this thing since I was, like, ten? Eleven?
The penny would slot in the back there, and let the little car do wheelies, which is, of course, cool.
There’s still billions of pennies out there in circulation, so I suspect this is hardly the last time you’ll encounter them. In fact, I’m just about positive every American reading this now can look in drawers or their dryer lint trap and pull out at least a nice handful of pennies. I bet your car has a pretty good amount of pennies already in it, too.
Things will be a little weird for a bit, but it likely won’t take that long to get past not using pennies, if we’re honest. But anything that has been part of daily life for nearly 240 years I think deserves some sort of send-off.
Am I missing any other good car-penny connections? If so, tell us in the comments! In detail! Painful detail!
If they offered a ‘buyback’ program for pennies I’d be curious what amount they’d get back from people. 2 cents per penny returned!
While they’re no longer being minted, pennies remain legal tender, so I don’t think there is going to be a big push anytime soon to truly phase them out. And as Torch pointed out, there are billions of pennies in circulation, so we’re probably not going to be facing a shortage.
Friend told me once he uses to have some pennies in his pocket while walking around town to throw them at cars when drivers are jerks, basically not respecting traffic laws.
Shards of spark plug ceramic. But throwing these is not respecting laws either (or basic human decency).
Welcome to America! We don’t make cents.
pennies also make a fun and surprisingly reasonably priced flooring material. Packed hexagonally it’s about 3 dollars per square foot, plus some epoxy to make the surface flat and glue it all down.
Too soon, Torch.
The value of a penny in 1793 is worth about $0.71 today, so it makes sense to get rid of most of them
The nickel won’t be too far behind, get rid of the hundredths decimal place altogether. American currency used to go to the Mill or thousandths of a dollar but that was phased out around the civil war if memory serves.
I’m more or less heading there, but I really think we ought to (for now) just abolish the dime and nickel. Rounding up to the quarter is doable.
The mill is phased out as a unit of physical currency, but still very much in use in finance. Property tax is billed as “mill rate” ie. a mill rate of 5 would be $500 per $100,000 of assessed value (and also stupidly high, think about moving or protesting). Power is usually billed in mills to non-consumer users (us oiks just get rounded up to the nearest penny).
Blue chip stamps were worth a mill a piece. Maybe we’ll go back to trading stamps.
Once few enough people pay for anything with physical currency, the decimal places don’t need to be eliminated. Just the (new) coins. Won’t run out of what’s already in circ.
I had no idea those things were called Moravian Stars. I’ve seen them and admired them, but didn’t/should’ve realize/d there was a specific name for them.
Also, Otto is so small in that photo with your Beetle. 🙂 I get the impression that he’s taller than Jason (or I) is/am now. Which is setting a low bar (pun intended).
I like pennies. I don’t really use them, but I like them, and am a bit sorry to see ’em go, even if they were cost inefficient. I think Bazooka Joe gum used to be two cents when I was a kid, but *maybe* it was a penny? I also recall hearing about the ‘fuse trick’ when I was a film student, since we were always blowing fuses in whatever ungentrified old apartment someone was foolish enough to let us film in.
I’m also a fan of copper: the metal and the color. Buick’s fanciest Envista (Aveneir or something like that?) can be had in a lovely shade of copper. It’s pretty enough to almost render my concerns about the disposability of the engine moot. Also, maybe 10-15 years ago, when the smallest Mercedes crossover first came out (GLA?) it shared most of its big bits with an Infiniti small/sleek crossover, the name of which escapes me at the moment (J something?). Anyway, that Infiniti could be specified in a truly fantastic rendition of metallic copper, which found its way onto other Infinitis over time (and maybe a Nissan or two, though I may be misremembering).
Let’s pour one out for the penny, and for copper, the color of which will slowly fade from our big jars of loose change. 🙁
Edited to add: the Infiniti was the QX30, which IMO looked way better than the Mercedes version. The paint color was called Liquid Copper. Here’s a link (scroll down to #3): https://carbuzz.com/great-paint-options-average-cars
Not car related, but a couple years ago when we were fixing windows and window trim on our house, we found some pennies used as shims to hold a window in place.
I’m pretty sure I’ve used them as washers with a hole drilled through when I didn’t have any real ones.
Yep i’ve found pennies used as toilet base shims, very handy!
“Am I missing any other good car-penny connections? If so, tell us in the comments! In detail! Painful detail”
Can’t believe.you missed “A penny for your thoughts”. But I guess that takes a dime now.
I also think my thoughts are worth more than a penny. But that’s just my two cents.
Canada stopped our pennies in 2013 and it was a pretty smooth transition here. Penny Racers were super cool!
I’m just going to leave this gem here, thank you Upright Citizens Brigade:
I guess just switch to nickels now?
Now James will need to find a new British Secret Intelligence Service Lead Officer….Ms. MoneyNICKEL.
Clicked on the article solely to see if Penny Racers would be mentioned. As usual, Torch did not disappoint.
The pyromaniac in me wants to start blowtorching pennies to fill voids in metal now.
But in all seriousness, I need more info on this method. Are these post-1982 high-zinc pennies, or the older composition? At what temperature is the melting taking place?
Could you use a Hot Wheels car body to do the same?
I know those melt, too. Because prior research.
Also, what galaxy-brained genius thought it would be a good idea to use a blowtorch anywhere near the gas tank
Presumably, it was empty and maybe off the car at the time?
The same one that used a chainsaw on a battery, if I had to guess
Probably soldered with a #4 soldering iron. 2 pounds of 1000 degree Fahrenheit copper, pressed against a penny and some lead would make quick work of it. No flame or spark involved.
I’ve cut up gas tanks with a torch. Just think ahead, it’s not a problem if you make sure there’s no oxygen in there.
I remember melting all-copper pennies when the shop teacher wasn’t looking with an acetyelene torch when I was too young to drive. I don’t think I’ve melted any minted since the changeover.
This is just my 2¢, but when it comes to pennies, I could take them or leave them.
What will happen to all the souvenir machines that take a few quarters and a penny and stamp the penny into a souvenir token ? ! ? !
This legitimately is a good point. My kids have tons of those things, even got one last weekend, so them going away does make me a little sad for that exact reason. I think I’m going to have to go to the bank and snag a couple rolls to keep in the car or something for this.
I was amused to see them loaded with pennies and outfitted with a credit card reader. Now you can charge $0.51 to your CC and get a smooshed penny in return!
I’ve seen a couple like that, but the majority don’t accept cards still.
I haven’t seen those but it makes a lot of sense.
Many (maybe most) people don’t have change in their pockets today.
If those machines are pre-loaded with pennies, they could probably just use copper blanks instead
Copper blanks are probably more expensive.
They’re already charging $0.51. $0.76 in some places.
I suspect we will start stamping nickels into tokens.
However that is a retool that costs money. No idea of the economics of defacing pennies to make souvenirs
I doubt it, the nickel is a much thicker coin, not as easy to smash like that, but maybe.
Okay, let’s do dimes!
Might require a harder die and different gearing. It certainly is possible. A penny is 75% copper and copper is pretty soft.
300 billion pennies have been minted since the 18th century, with production averaging over 3 billion per year in recent years, those machines will still just use pennies, they’re in no danger of becoming rare just because we stopped making more of them
There is a shortage of pennies in banks and retail stores, though. Too many people have hoarded them.
Maybe the mint could start making tuppence. Aluminum blanks should keep the cost down.
Yeah, people have them sitting around at home and can bring some along if they think they might want to crush one for a souvenir
Most people aren’t going to raid their coin jar before they go on vacation.
When pennies stop circulating – which will happen in months to a few years a change will need to be made.
The average lifespan of a coin is 30 years, we got some time
Most pennies don’t circulate – that is why we are getting rid of them
Do you use a penny once and trash it? A penny’s expected life is 40 years. This means the cost is far less over that life.
Many people never use a penny. They get one in change, throw it in a change jar at the end of the day, and it sits there for years or even decades.
Many banks won’t even take rolled coins anymore and rolling pennies isn’t worth the effort. So they sit in the jar.
Plenty of people won’t bend over to pick up a penny either. I am one of them as I know it will just go in the jar and never get used. I’ll happily pick up a nickel
Vending machines won’t even take Pennys anymore. Which is where any of my change gets used.
That is why I use the change deposit system at my bank or Coinstar. Just saying the argument of it is more expensive to make is negated by the circulation life.
True. It comes back around in economic activity and income tax, bringing in much more than four cents during its lifetime.
The last time I was in a bank was 3 years ago. It was my local credit union that sold me CD online required me to cash them out in person within a 5 day window after the matured. I made those visits and then closed my account with a clear comment of why I was doing it. Any financial institution that requires me to drive to a physical location to do business with them has failed me and I will not do business with them.
About 7 years ago I moved most of my banking to Ally. Today they handle all of it.
Most pennies never circulate. That is why the Mint makes more pennies every year than all other coins combined
When I took a big chunk of change to my local bank they told me they had to get rid of their Coinstar as it broke too often. Too many people dumping old linty jars of coins mixed in with junk drawer bits into it and gumming it up!
This is correct, the reason so many pennies were produced per year is to continually replace the ones that were used in only one transaction then immediately tossed in the packet drawer or an empty jar or an old hub cap, or wherever you store them after getting them as change. The only reason the 40 year figure is cited is because that’s the average age of the worn out pennies that are returned to the Mint for destruction, but the vast majority will never go back at all, because they get removed from circulation almost immediately and then forgotten about
When I pay for gas with cash I always make sure to add the amount of change in my pocket to the dollar cost, so that it becomes, say, $25.42 and I get to rid myself of shrapnel.
I haven’t paid for gas in cash for more than a decade (in the USA at least)
Here, the cash price is often considerably lower and I only get 2% (in points). I don’t drive much anyhow; last time I filled up was in September.
We buy most of our gas from Costco as it has the cheapest price around. They don’t have a different cash vs credit price.
I also generally will not buy from companies that charge extra for credit card payments. A few restaurants around here do that and I’ve sat down, looked at the menu, then walked out after telling the waitress why. Way too many option that allow for modern payment. Accepting credit cards is simply a cost of doing business.
That just means everyone has to pay part of the sizable cost and fees of running credit cards. 2.35 or 3% per swipe, adding up to $148.5 billion last year. The ability to use cash is a freedom, you just don’t see it yet.
Average swipe fee is 2.35%. My minimum reward is 3%. I’m coming out ahead even before sign up bonuses that are generally $600 to $800 per card.
However, even if charging a 3% fee to use a card becomes normal so that the rewards and fees are a wash I’m not going back to carrying cash. Did that for decades – it isn’t freedom.
If I avoided gas stations that charge extra for credit card payments, I couldn’t get gas anywhere but Costco, and it’s not always practical to go all the way over there to fill up.
Good on ya if this strategy works for you buying gas, but it’s not really workable where I am.
Restaurants on the other hand, that’s bizarre. But gas stations? They all do it.
The vast majority of our fuel comes from Costco (gasoline) or Fred Meyers (diesel). Neither charges a extra fee for a credit card.
For those that do they would need to charge about $0.15 more per gallon to exceed the rewards on my card.
I regular pay for gas in cash because
I calculate my fuel milage every tank so that tank needs to be full to get an accurate number.
When I was a kid a friends dad had his car at the dealership for service and was irate with the time it took and cost. When he went to pick the car up and pay for it he took a 5 gallon water bottle filled with change with him. He poured out the bottle and counted the change at the counter to pay with Pennies and nickels.
And then there’s an angle for Mercedes, when as a kid I used to put pennies on the train rail and come back the next day and hopefully find a big flat pancake of copper. These were 1960’s pennies…
Me too! But more recently I wish I still had a squished one, but I guess there’s no reason not to make more now. (Be safe kids!)