The United States wouldn't be the first country to eliminate the coin, Turco said. Canada, for example, decided to phase out its penny in 2012. In the U.S., the Department of Defense stopped using pennies at its overseas bases in 1980 because it became too expensive to ship them.

In a cost-cutting move, the U.S. Treasury will stop minting new pennies. Originally introduced in 1793, the one-cent coins will still be legal tender. There are more than 100 billion pennies in circulation.

Online chatter has lots of folks looking at their caches of coins hoping to find Lincoln wheat pennies that they unrealistically hope are priceless.

The U.S. Mint made its final order of penny blanks and said it plans to halt the production of pennies once those run out, which will likely be in early 2026, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news.

Per the latest U.S. Mint report, it costs less than six cents to make a dime ($0.0576). To make a quarter, it costs about 15 cents ($0.1468), and nearly 34 cents for a half-dollar ($0.3397).

That can lead to coins like the 1943 Lincoln bronze cent, which was made out of bronze in error. It should have been made out of zinc-coated steel, with the Mint having stopped using bronze which was needed for the war effort. Around 20 bronze Lincoln cents have been discovered, with the most expensive being sold for $1.7 million.

A penny saved was a penny earned. A penny bought your thoughts. A penny was pretty. A penny was pinched. A penny might even be hiding in your loafer. There won’t be as much of that anymore. The Treasury Department said on Thursday that it was phasing out the penny.