National Lucky Penny Day is Friday, but the future for the penny is not looking so lucky

Friday is National Lucky Penny Day, but the future for the penny is not looking so lucky. The U.S. Treasury confirmed Thursday it ordered its last round of pennies

The U.S. Treasury has confirmed that it has ordered its last round of pennies, after which they will no longer be in production, though they can still be used for purchases.

This follows a February announcement by the Trump administration that it will halt the production of the one cent coins, a move that’s estimated to save the government $56 million.

The move comes as the Treasury faces a legal obligation to mint coins in accordance with public demand, despite the fact that their production costs more than their face value.

The report also notes that the administration is planning to recommend to Congress that the minimum denomination of circulating coins be raised to five cents, a move that would require congressional approval.

The news may come as a surprise to some, but it's ultimately not that shocking. After all, pennies have been slowly disappearing from circulation for years now.

The last time the U.S. mint made any significant changes to the penny was in 1982, when the copper content of the coin was reduced.

Before 1982, pennies were made entirely of copper and are worth about 3 cents a piece. However, since 1982, pennies are composed of 97.5 percent zinc with a 2.5 percent copper plating, making them worth only a single cent.

You can sell old pennies to a coin shop, but you can’t melt them down. Since pennies are still legal tender, it’s a felony to melt them for profit.

“If they do away with the penny, or the cent, I don’t know if they’ll approve it to be melted, they probably will,” said Rick Raines of Raines Rare Coins LLC.

The copper price increases and decreases, but it's safe to assume that an old penny would be worth more than one cent today.

The report also mentions that 114 billion pennies are in production, and the coin is the most commonly collected. However, Raines has not seen an increase in demand for pennies since the announcement that production will stop.

“There’s still way too many pennies for the collectors’ base to collect,” Raines said.

But one penny has been hard to come by: the 2025 penny.

“Everybody found out that the production is stopped, so everybody ran into the banks and started buying them,” Raines said. “So, we’ve got collectors looking for those and I don’t even have any at the shop right now.”