Pennies are going away. Here's what to do with yours.
Even though the most valuable coins are usually in collections and have very publicly been "sold and resold," said John Feigenbaum, publisher of rare coin price guide Greysheet, sometimes people may inherit a cache of well-preserved coins or purchase some at an estate sale.
Some of those coins may be pennies, or cents, and they may be unsure what to do with them. Here's a look at their usefulness, and value.
Generally speaking, it's U.S. government policy that all designs of Federal Reserve notes remain legal tender, or legally valid for payments, regardless of when they were issued. This policy includes all denominations of Federal Reserve notes, from 1914 to present.
The same applies to old coins. Old coins can be spent just like any other currency. In the U.S. for example, coins and banknotes issued by the U.S. Mint and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing retain their face value regardless of age. While some older coins may hold additional appeal to collectors due to their rarity or condition, they technically can still be used for their original intended purpose of transactions.
People who have pennies that they think are valuable should:
Read up on your coins. While there are apps you can use to check on your coins, they aren't always accurate. But you can check the value of coins in "The 2026 Red Book: A Guide Book of United States Coins," available in book stores and online on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. "It answers all kinds of questions, like, 'Oh, if I'm thinking about collecting Lincoln cents, what can I expect to pay?" said Feigenbaum, one of the book's editors. "You'll see in that book there's no million-dollar cents."
Go get your coins graded. You can have your coins authenticated at their value, just as jewelry is, from several services, including CAC, Numismatic Guaranty Company, and Professional Coin Grading Service.
American consumers made only 16% of their payments in cash in 2023, according to the Federal Reserve. A 2022 Pew survey found that two-fifths of consumers never use cash at all.
The typical household is sitting on $60 to $90 in neglected coins, enough to fill one or two pint-size beer mugs, according to the Federal Reserve.
Kevin McColly, CEO of Coinstar, the company behind the coin-cashing machines you see in supermarkets, thinks we should change the way we think about coins; to state the obvious, coins are worth money, she said. Coinstar converts $3 billion in coins into spendable cash every year, one coin jar at a time. The average jar yields $58.
'People underestimate the value of their jar by about half,' McColly said. 'It's a wonderfully pleasurable experience. People have this sensation of found money.'
Certain groups of Americans — lower-income households, and those over 55 — still use plenty of cash, the Fed found, along with people who prefer to shop in person.
McColly thinks it is time for a paradigm shift. Don't think of your coins as clutter. Think of them as recyclables.
'They're metal,' he said, in case we needed a reminder. 'And they have a long and useful life.'
The Treasury still mints more than 5 billion coins a year, although the figure is dropping, according to the journal CoinNews.
'Those are just natural resources coming out of the Earth,' McColly said: Copper-plated zinc for pennies, copper-nickel alloys for nickels, dimes and quarters.
His point: If Americans got serious about gathering up their idle coins and 'recycling' them into the monetary system, the Mint wouldn't have to make so many new ones.
Both NerdWallet and Bankrate offer tip sheets on exchanging coins for cash. Most banks will take an account holder's coins for free, Bankrate reports, but not all, and you may need to roll the coins yourself.
While Trump has only instructed the Mint to stop making pennies, some voices have urged America to stop using them.
The Common Cents Act, introduced on April 30 by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, would round cash transactions to the nearest 5 cents.
'The penny is outdated and inefficient and no longer serves the needs of our economy,' said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the New York Democrat.
But the bill could push the nation down a slippery slope.
'So, You Want to Get Rid of the Penny,' the New York Times mused in a recent headline. 'Do You Have a Plan for the Nickel?'
As it turns out, nixing the penny creates new problems. If America rids itself of pennies, the Times reported, the nation will soon find itself flooded with nickels.
The government loses nearly 3 cents on every penny it mints. On a nickel, it loses nearly 9 cents. More nickels would mean steeper losses.
America could kill both the penny and the nickel, the two money-losers on its roster of coins.
But without pennies or nickels, how would a consumer pay a 15-cent tab?
Experts say it's highly unlikely.
You may have seen one of many headlines blasted online lately about valuable pennies in circulation, "Lincoln Wheat Penny Worth $124M You Could Have at Home" reads one, but the reality is most pennies are worth one cent or possibly a bit more.
Reality does not meet the hype, according to one expert.
"There are million-dollar pennies, but there are no $100 million pennies," said Donn Pearlman, spokesman for the Professional Numismatists Guild (PNG), a nonprofit organization composed of many of the nation's rare coin experts. "Only a few Lincoln cents dated 1909 to 1958 with the wheat stalks design on the back ("wheat pennies") have sold for $1 million or more."
The most valuable U.S. coin ever, a $20 gold piece, a 1933 "Double Eagle" coin, sold for $18.9 million at auction in 2021. The most valuable pennies, which are rare but possibly still in circulation, are 1943 copper Lincoln wheat pennies, a few of which were produced accidentally as the U.S. mints were supposed to use zinc to save copper for the World War II effort, said Feigenbaum.
In rare cases, some 1943 pennies have sold for $1 million, while one went for more than $200,000 at an auction in 2019.
Depending on their condition, those 1943 Lincoln wheat pennies would be worth at most between $100,000 and $250,000, Feigenbaum told USA TODAY.
But the likelihood of having a near-priceless penny is similar to "saying your lottery ticket might be worth $100,000. Of course, anything is possible, right? But not likely," said Feigenbaum, who is also the PNG's executive director.
So-called "wheat pennies" get their name from the back of the coin having stalks of wheat encircling the "One Cent" text. They were produced from 1909 to 1958. After that, pennies began displaying an engraving of the Lincoln Memorial.
Most Lincoln wheat pennies are not super-valuable and are worth just a few cents more than 1 cent. However, some may escalate into the hundreds of dollars, depending on the condition and when minted. Certain vintages, especially with minting errors, may be worth thousands. You can see the NGC price guide here.
But headlines about super-valuable "Lincoln wheat pennies" stretch the imagination. Most likely, the headlines are created by artificial intelligence to drive traffic to a website, Feigenbaum said.
"These coins are improbably in people's change," he said.
Still, all the online-stirred interest has resulted in "coin shops being inundated with these folks who believe they have something rare, but they don't," according to Feigenbaum.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Pennies are going away. Here's what to do with yours.
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