Americans of almost every political persuasion can finally agree on something: It’s high time to stop spending nearly 4 cents to mint and distribute a penny. But that doesn’t mean every little copper-plated disk is worthless—collectors pay thousands of dollars for some fairly new ones you might happen to have in that change jar or beneath the sofa cushions.

Whatever their value, pennies have been in the news this week after President Trump announced Sunday he was directing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to halt production of one-cent coins. Trump made the case against pennies to the public on social media.

“Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations [sic] budget, even if it’s a penny at a time,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful.”

The world’s richest man also wants to stop producing the nation’s least-valuable coin. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) run by Elon Musk said in a Jan. 21 post on X that making pennies cost American taxpayers $179 million in fiscal 2023.

The author of the DOGE post—possibly Musk himself—questioned the wisdom of covering that expense by posing a rhetorical question: “Penny (or 3 cents) for your thoughts?” But it doesn’t require much thought to make sense of what the United States Mint 2024 Annual Report says about the cost of coins.

“FY 2024 unit costs increased for all circulating denominations compared to last year,” the report said. “The penny’s unit cost increased 20.2 percent, the nickel’s unit cost increased by 19.4 percent, the dime’s unit cost increased by 8.7 percent and the quarter-dollar’s unit cost increased by 26.2 percent. The unit cost for pennies (3.69 cents) and nickels (13.78 cents) remained above face value for the 19th consecutive fiscal year.”

Fiscal conservatives aren’t the only people who view those numbers as outrageous. Progressives can find them just as disturbing, as evidenced by an article appearing in September in the Sunday magazine section of The New York Times. It was called End the Tyranny of the Penny.

The author, a staff writer named Caity Weaver, came up with something she called the “perpetual penny paradox” and labeled it the “dumbest thing I ever heard.” The paradox is that pennies are given in change, but the recipients don’t bother to use them. The nearly worthless coins just accumulate in a soap dish, get lost in the laundry or simply fall on the ground, thus creating the need to keep producing one-cent pieces hardly anybody really wants.

At least they could try to spend less making them.

Trying to cut the cost

The U.S. Mint reduced the expense of churning out single-cent pieces in 1982 by switching from pennies that were 95% copper to the current practice of turning out copper-plated disks consisting of 97.5% zinc and just 2.5% copper. That change in alloys reduced the weight from 3.11 grams to 2.5 grams, a clearly noticeable difference.

More recently, the mint has been trying to cut its losses by reducing the number of pennies it cranks out, but the totals still seem staggering. It produced an eye-popping 3.2 billion pennies in fiscal 2024, down from 5.3 billion three years earlier but still a lot.

Those 3.2 billion one-cent pieces have a face value of $32 million but represent a loss of something like $85.3 million for U.S. taxpayers. Think of it as paying $3.69 for a dollar bill. Would you do that? And, yes, these numbers from the mint don’t jibe exactly with the DOGE figures, but who’s counting?

Well, actually, a lot of observers are trying to count the number of pennies in circulation, but they can’t agree on the total. Estimates range all the way up to a quarter of a trillion (250 billion). The Federal Reserve places the number in circulation at a more conservative 114 billion. That’s $1.14 billion, so they do add up but they still account for only 0.006% of the money in circulation. That’s an average of about 700 pennies for person in the U.S.

So what would a halt to production mean for all those pennies abroad in the land?

A persistent nuisance

Even if the U.S. stops minting pennies, the little coins and the value they represent might not disappear for decades. Physically, they’ll keep turning up in sock drawers and glove compartments, and some will probably find their way back into circulation. Symbolically, retailers could still advertise apples or chicken breasts on sale for 99 cents a pound.

But even if prices were still expressed in numbers ending in one, two, three, four, six, seven, eight or nine cents, cashiers would most likely round the total up or down to the nearest nickel. Yes, they’d contribute to inflation if they round up, but studies indicate the effect would be minimal. In Canada, where pennies were eliminated in 2013, stores round the total of a cost of cash transaction, not the cost of each item.

Plus, anyone paying with a check, credit card, debit card or digital wallet could still tender an amount ending in any number of cents.

Then there’s the fortuitous environmental impact of reducing the need to mine copper and zinc. But it comes with the unfortunate economic impact of eliminating jobs in penny production and along the supply chain for the mint’s raw materials and the distribution of its products.

On balance, it still seems like a winning proposition to stop making pennies. The government would save money by discontinuing the production of pennies, and most of us wouldn’t miss them much—if at all.

But a few might disapprove of the move, including people so destitute they resent rounding prices up by a few cents, anyone who carries a “lucky penny” or throws coins into wishing wells, preppies who insert them into their loafers, collectors who value their historical importance, and dealers who profit by buying and selling them.

Let’s consult with the latter group.

Extremely valuable pennies

Everybody knows rare old coins can be worth a lot of money. Anyone who’s ever collected them has heard of the 1909-S VDB penney, The “S” stand for San Franciso, where it was minted, and the designer’s initials were “VDB.” A very good example of the coin fetched $1.2 million at auction.

But coins need not be a century old to have value. Pennies new enough that you might have one in the pocket of your jeans can be worth a lot more than one cent because of their rarity. Usually, they’re scarce because of a flaw.

The 1998 Close AM penny, which has the letters “A” and “M” close together in the word “AMERICA” on the reverse side, can sell for as much as $4,500, according to the CoinValueChecker website. Not enough? A 1999 Double Die penny, one where the dies used to make the coin were misaligned, can bring $5,400.

The chances of happening onto one of those two coins would be slim, but other somewhat valuable pennies are easier to come across. Take the example of the Off-Center penny, which is missing some of the design because the dies weren’t aligned. They can be worth up to $100 and occur just about every year, including 2023.

Then there’s the chance just about any penny could become valuable if the government quits making them, But with so many circulating or just lying dormant and waiting to be discovered, most seem unlikely to increase a lot in value.

But is there anything that could make the mint keep producing pennies?

The coin that wouldn’t die

Like many attempts to reduce wasteful spending, ridding the nation of pennies might prove easier said than done. First, it’s far from clear the president has the power to decree the end of penny production. Congress, not the Treasury or the Federal Reserve, authorizes the mint to manufacture coins. Some legal scholars say that means only an act of Congress can stop the manufacturing of pennies.

What’s more, halting the production of pennies could actually lead to more waste and higher costs. You read that right. As pennies disappear, demand for nickels would increase. That’s a potential problem because five-cent pieces cost nearly 14 cents to produce. They make the penny seem like a bargain.

Ed McKinley is Luckbox editor-in-chief.