Supposedly there’s a national penny shortage.

I haven’t noticed — I’ve got a water bottle full of them in the closet — but we’re told this is serious business. Commissions have been formed. Reports have been issued. Somewhere, a government official is probably testifying about copper in front of a committee that can’t spell copper.

On November 12, 2025, the government finally stopped making one-cent coins. Naturally, collectors pounced. The last batch of 696 pennies sold for $16.7 million. That’s roughly $24,000 per penny.

Personally, I’d have sold mine for a dollar and called it a good day.

With their newly freed schedules, people who apparently have far too much time on their hands held a funeral for the penny at the Lincoln Memorial. There were speeches. There were tears. There may have been eulogies about “a coin who loved too much.”

Meanwhile, shop owners began worrying about change shortages. Maybe this will finally end the $X.99 pricing trick that’s been around since the first caveman salesman told Bertha the round rock would cost just 4.99 shells, plus tax.

The thing is — the penny probably should’ve gone years ago. It cost about 3 to 4 cents to manufacture every one cent coin. When you multiply that by billions of coins a year, you get an impressive math problem:

taxpayers pay around $185 million to create about $50 million worth of currency.

Only in government accounting can that be labeled “cost savings.”

And yet, in an amazing display of confidence, the government proudly announced it would save $56 million per year by not doing the thing that was already losing money. My sixth-grade math teacher is still trying to work that one out, and she retired in 1984.

Of course, the nickel isn’t much better. It also costs more than its value to produce. To add insult to injury, a nickel is only 25% nickel. At this point, our coins are basically commemorative tokens that happen to be legal tender.

But let’s talk history for a moment — because every one of my commentaries contains at least one nugget of trivia people can quote later to win bar bets.

In 1943, the Mint switched to steel pennies to conserve copper for the war. A few copper blanks accidentally slipped through, creating one of the most famous coin mistakes in history. One of those rare 1943 copper pennies can fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars — proof that even our mistakes are more valuable than our actual currency.

Then there was the 1955 Doubled-Die penny, where a misaligned die made the lettering and date look like they were printed twice. It’s one of the few coins where the error practically waves at you and shouts, “Look at me!” You can still find them online today — if you’re willing to spend far more money than the coin is actually worth.

Canada eliminated its penny back in 2013. A later study found that rounding transactions actually shifted a few million dollars from shoppers to retailers as they rounded up. So yes — eliminating pennies saved tax money…but somehow still managed to cost the public.

Which, when you think about it, might be the most accurate thing about modern economics.

And that’s the real legacy of the penny: it never cost much individually —
but somehow, collectively, it added up to a problem.

Kind of like government paperwork.

Kind of like everything else we keep around because we’re sentimental, even when it stopped making sense twenty years ago.

So if you still have a jar of pennies at home, don’t spend them. Save them.
They may be worth something someday. And if this shortage turns out to be real, contact me — I happen to know a guy with a water bottle full of them.