The United States Has Stopped Minting the Penny, That Is, the Copper One-Cent Coin

The United States has stopped minting the penny, that is, the copper one-cent coin. A vast country, a great economy, space-age technology, and yet things did not work out with one small piece of copper.

They counted, they reckoned, and they discovered that producing a one-cent coin for a little over three cents is a pleasure as agreeable as it is expensive. It is beyond the means even of those who stitch such coins onto their own garments.

The other day the American mint ceremoniously struck its last one-cent piece. And lest anyone say that the penny was simply abandoned, the farewell was staged handsomely, with due ceremony.

For the moment, we are told, all the pennies previously minted remain in circulation. Rather like certain rare types of people: long since taken out of production, yet still liable to turn up in real life every now and then.

Collectors have been promised rare issues, so that they will have something to be proud of. Everyone else has been invited to recall their school arithmetic and the rules of rounding.

The world has become one coin lighter and heavier by one reason to ponder: when will the energy of money finally vanish from our wallets, first copper, then cupronickel, steel, brass and nickel, and in the end paper too? Only cloud transactions will remain, and memories, like our parents' recollections of paying their fare with a ten-kopeck coin.

Those who wish to immerse themselves in anticipatory nostalgia, to pine for a future that is about to become the past, can get hold of our kopecks, which are still in circulation for now, though according to the reference books none of the 1, 5, 10 or 50 kopeck coins are minted any longer.