There’s a certain poetic irony in watching the United States Mint finally decreed the end of the penny. After more than a century of clinking around in couch cushions and car cup holders, the humble one-cent coin will soon shuffle off into history, a victim of arithmetic. It now costs 3.7 cents to make a penny. You don’t need an MBA to see the problem there.

In 2025, the Mint placed its final order for penny blanks—the metal discs that become coins—essentially saying, “That’s enough copper-plated nostalgia, thanks.” Once those blanks run out, the presses will stop, and the penny will join the pantheon of America’s most unloved currency experiments.

If you think this is the first time we have said goodbye to unpopular currency, allow us to take you on a guided tour of the U.S. Treasury’s Hall of “Nice Try, But No One Asked for This.” In this Who’s Who of Unpopular Currency, you’ll see dollar coins people refused to use, currency that cashiers refused to believe was real, and denominations that lasted about as long as a new reality-TV marriage.

End of the Penny from Heaven (and a Budget Committee)

The penny’s story began nobly enough. The first U.S. cents were hefty copper saucers in 1793—so large that you could probably use one to patch a hole in a roof. By 1909, Abraham Lincoln’s face appeared on the coin, and America collectively decided it was too sentimental to part with.

Fast forward to today, and that devotion looks a bit misplaced. Inflation has turned the penny into a rounding error with a portrait. The coin’s purchasing power has dropped 99% since Lincoln’s debut. The only thing it can buy now is time—specifically, the two seconds you waste fishing it out of a self-checkout tray.

The Treasury estimates that stopping penny production will save about $56 million a year. That’s enough to fund the next ten government studies on why people hate dollar coins, or the next 25 studies on whether a dinosaur can outrun a human (and we really wish we were making up that last one, but here we are).

Naturally, there’s resistance. Americans love tradition, even when it’s irrational. We still print the $1 bill. We still measure things in inches (thanks to pirates preventing us from adopting the metric system). We still argue about whether a hot dog is a sandwich. But the penny’s demise feels different. It’s like saying goodbye to a mildly annoying family member who insists on paying with exact change.

Canada dropped its penny in 2013 and somehow survived. Prices round to the nearest nickel, and no one is rioting in the streets of Toronto. But Americans, fiercely independent, would rather lose money making money than copy Canada’s homework.

The One-Dollar Coin: A Saga in Four Acts

You’d think after the penny fiasco, Washington might have learned something about public resistance to change. You’d be wrong. The U.S. has been trying to make a dollar coin happen for more than 50 years, and each attempt has gone about as well as Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Act I: The Eisenhower Dollar (1971–1978)

Big, bold, and beautiful—if you were looking for something to use as a paperweight. The Eisenhower dollar was roughly the size of a hockey puck and about as convenient to carry. It was supposed to be a proud tribute to the general who helped win World War II. Instead, Americans took one look, said, “That’s nice,” and went back to their wallets full of $1 bills.

Act II: The Susan B. Anthony Dollar (1979–1981, 1999)

The Mint’s next brainstorm: shrink the dollar coin to quarter size and honor a pioneering suffragist. Admirable intention, catastrophic execution. The coin looked so much like a quarter that vending machines and human beings alike couldn’t tell the difference. People handed them over expecting soda and got a blank stare instead.

The Susan B. Anthony dollar was discontinued after two years, revived briefly in 1999, and immediately ignored again. Somewhere, Susan B. Anthony is shaking her head in feminist disappointment.

Act III: The Sacagawea Dollar (2000–present)

Having learned nothing from history, the government decided the problem wasn’t the coin—it was the color. The Sacagawea dollar arrived in 2000 with a golden hue and a fresh design: the Shoshone guide carrying her infant son. It was dignified, distinctive, and still utterly unwanted.

The first year saw over a billion coins minted. By 2002, the Mint was producing them mostly for collectors because nobody else wanted them. They became the coin equivalent of that gym membership you swear you’ll use someday.

Act IV: The Presidential Dollar Series (2007–2016)

“Let’s put presidents on them!” said someone in a meeting. And thus began a new era of gold-toned indifference. Every few months, another commander-in-chief got his own coin, and every few months, Americans continued not to care.

By 2011, the U.S. had 1.4 billion of these sitting in vaults—enough to build a small metallic pyramid of regret. The Treasury eventually stopped producing them for circulation, saving about $50 million a year in the process. The program limped along until 2016, when the last presidential coin was minted for collectors.

We would be remiss if we didn’t mention the huge financial blunder the government made with its program to sell the coins for $1 (read this article for more details).

In the end, the dollar coin failed for the same reason every dollar coin failed: Americans like folding their money. We’ll carry three pounds of phone, but heaven forbid a few ounces of coins.

The $2 Bill: A Currency, a Myth, and a Superstition

The $2 bill is the most misunderstood piece of U.S. currency ever printed. It’s perfectly legal tender, but good luck convincing a cashier of that.

The bill was first issued in 1862, then redesigned for the Bicentennial in 1976. The idea was simple: print fewer $1s, save money, and encourage efficient cash handling. The result? Americans immediately started hoarding them as collectibles.

To this day, people treat a $2 bill like a lucky charm or a rare artifact. Spend one, and the recipient will look at you like you just tried to pay with a unicorn. Some stores refuse them, others call the manager, and a few brave souls accept them only after Googling “Is $2 bill real?”

Ironically, there are still hundreds of millions in circulation—most sitting in drawers, glove compartments, or secret envelopes labeled “For emergencies (or gifts for graduates).”

The $2 bill didn’t fail because it was bad design. It failed because people can’t handle novelty. We like our denominations predictable, even if our finances aren’t.

Denominations That Time Forgot

The Half-Cent (1793–1857)

Back when bread cost less than a penny and patience was infinite, the half-cent made sense. It was worth about 14 modern cents when retired, which sounds thrifty until you remember the coin was the size of a modern nickel and twice as annoying.

Congress abolished it in 1857, mercifully sparing future generations from the horror of calculating sales tax to the nearest half-cent.

The Half-Dollar

Once a workhorse coin, now an endangered species. You’ll find it in casinos, coin collections, and the occasional family reunion where Grandpa insists on tipping waiters with JFKs “because that’s real money.”

Its awkward size—too big for vending machines, too small to feel valuable—doomed it. The Mint stopped mass production for circulation after 2001, and the half-dollar quietly joined the witness protection program.

The 20-Cent Piece (1875–1878)

This one barely lasted three years. Meant to simplify transactions in the western territories, it instead created mass confusion because it looked exactly like a quarter. Merchants hated it, customers hated it, and Congress killed it faster than you can say “design review.”

It’s the perfect metaphor for government problem-solving: create a coin to make change easier, accidentally make it harder, declare victory, go home.

High-Rollers and Wartime Oddities

The Big Bills ($500–$10,000)

Before wire transfers, large-denomination bills were how banks settled big transactions. You could walk around with a $10,000 note bearing Salmon P. Chase’s face if you wanted to feel rich and suspicious at the same time. Many of the faces on these big bills are those of people who are relatively unknown today. (See “The Not-So-Famous Faces on Currency” to see how many you recognize).

By 1969, electronic banking made them redundant, and the Treasury discontinued them. These days they’re collector’s items worth far more than face value—the only time “printing money” actually paid off.

World War II Emergency Notes

During World War II, the U.S. printed special bills for Hawaii and for the U.S. military to use in North Africa. If enemy forces captured them, the Treasury could declare them void, rendering them useless. It was a clever plan that worked. The notes did their duty and were later destroyed, leaving collectors with rare, sun-faded souvenirs of logistical paranoia.

We Just Don’t Like Change

Why do all these experiments flop? It isn’t incompetence (well, not entirely). It’s psychology. Americans have a complicated relationship with money—especially physical money.

• Habit. Some of our currency has been in use since the USA was still in its “awkward years.” Asking Americans to give it up is like asking them to stop saying “bless you” after a sneeze.
• Convenience. Coins are heavy, wallets are thin, and our pockets already hold phones the size of Pop-Tarts.
• Nostalgia. We cling to tradition like it’s a comfort blanket. That’s why Lincoln’s penny survived decades past its usefulness and why people get sentimental over denominations they never actually spend.
• Inertia. Once something is entrenched, good luck moving it. Other countries ditched low-value coins years ago—Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK—and somehow kept functioning. Meanwhile, the U.S. still pretends you can buy anything for 99 cents.

The End of the Penny, Its Funeral, and the Future of American Currency

The penny’s upcoming extinction isn’t just a bookkeeping decision—it’s a cultural milestone. It’s the government quietly admitting that nostalgia has a price tag and that arithmetic eventually wins.

Rounding to the nearest nickel will soon become the new normal. If you pay electronically (and who doesn’t), you’ll never notice. And truthfully, we’ve been doing this all along. If you look carefully at the gas pump, you’ll see that the price per gallon goes to the third decimal point; we just round to the nearest penny. Prices can still end in .99 (read “Why Do Prices Always End With 99 Cents” to find out why), but transactions will round up or down in cash. Retailers will survive. Lincoln’s legacy will, too—on the $5 bill, where he can stretch his legs.

The more interesting question is what comes next. Will the nickel follow? At current metal prices, it costs about 10 cents to make one. Will we finally retire the $1 bill and embrace the coin that’s been patiently waiting for its turn since the Carter administration? Probably not.

We’ve seen this movie before: Treasury reports, cost analyses, pilot programs—all defeated by the mighty force of American inertia. The dollar coin will continue to sit in vaults, and the $1 bill will soldier on, thin and beloved, and other unpopular currency will remain in circulation until someone finally says, “Enough!”

But maybe the penny’s death is a small step toward sanity. Maybe this is the moment when the U.S. finally acknowledges that money should make sense—not just cents.

---