The penny received a “funeral” on Saturday, attended by mourners and Abraham Lincoln impersonators outside the Lincoln Memorial, after the U.S. Mint discontinued the coin last month.
Hundreds attended the event, many dressed in black or wearing Victorian-style attire. Mourners placed pennies into either caskets on display or made a wish as they threw pennies into a glass bowl of water, The Washington Post reported.
“Find a penny, pick it up and all day you’ll have good luck,” one Mary Todd Lincoln impersonator told the crowd. “Who here has said this phrase before? The penny poured out all its good luck for us and saved none for itself. If only the penny could have picked up another penny for good luck. A penny for a penny.”
Global expense management company Ramp hosted the “silly little event,” field producer Jarell Mique told the Post. The news outlet reported some mourners shed tears over the end of the penny’s production.
“I think it’s very special to be able to take a moment of my life to celebrate, you know, something that has lasted through generations,” Anna Kate Spotts, a pathologist from Baltimore with her face covered with a black lace veil, told the Post.
Mourners sat to listen to speakers, including Lincoln descendent Knowlton Anderson and impersonator Alan Edwards, known on social media by his handle @honestbabelincoln. The audience chanted “Abe” before he replied back, “You’re as pretty as a penny.”
Earlier in the year, President Trump requested that the Treasury Department stop minting new pennies to prevent the production of new pennies in 2026.
The last order for new pennies in the spring was not the last time a coin was discontinued. In 1857, Congress discontinued the half-cent coin.
Trump called the production of pennies wasteful and often cited the cost to make them. The average cost to produce one penny jumped to 3.69 cents last fiscal year. Other coins in circulation typically cost less to make than their value.
The last pennies produced in November will be auctioned in compliance with the president’s order. One of the final pennies produced is a 24-karat gold Omega privy mark penny. Collectively, the final set of pennies will go to auction priced at $15,000.
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