President Donald Trump talks of big change during his second term in office, but he's not forgetting the small change.
The Republican ordered the Treasury Department to stop making pennies with a Feb. 10 sentence on social media that followed years of conservatives pointing out that putting a copper-coated zinc disc in your pocket costs the government more than a cent — almost 4 cents today.
Will the penny disappear? There is no sign the U.S. Mint will stop pressing pennies in Denver and Philadelphia, and Mint officials did not immediately respond to requests for clarification.
A girl uses a penny press machine March 2 at the American Dream mall in East Rutherford, N.J.
Still, the presidential penny pledge already was felt in one little-known world that depends on buying pennies wholesale, loading them into machines and persuading parents to pay a few dollars to stamp designs — Paw Patrol or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, for example — on the coins as they are stretched between metal rollers.
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Small orbits of collectors and craftsmen developed around them. Without the penny, the whole thing faces an uncertain future.
A pressed, stamped penny is retrieved from a machine March 2 at the American Dream mall in East Rutherford, N.J.
No longer 100% copper
New copper pennies vanished from circulation in 1982 — 73 years after the first Lincoln penny was minted. They were replaced by coins of mostly zinc thinly coated with copper.
The old, solid copper ones were more pliable and easier to stamp, making them hot items for kids at funfairs an tourist sites.
"They'll clean 'em so when they elongate the dino or shark of the printed coin it maintains a ghost image of the printed head of Lincoln," said Brian Peters, general manager of Minnesota-based Penny Press Machine Co. "Pre-1982 copper pennies, they bring those."
Jeweler Angelo Rosato worked for decades in the 1960s and 1970s hand-printing pennies with scenes of their New Milford, Connecticut, hometown and historical and sentimental scenes. Everything was obsessively cataloged, including more than 4,000 penny photographs.
"We're big fans of the penny. Keep the penny," said Aaron Zablow of Roseland, New Jersey, who recently visited the American Dream Mall with two of his sons.
"I like the pennies," his 9-year-old son Mason said.
A boy plays with a penny press machine March 2 at the American Dream mall in East Rutherford, N.J.
The last pennies?
Critics say the rise of electronic commerce and the billions of pennies in circulation mean the U.S. could stop minting the copper coins tomorrow and see little widespread effect for decades.
Still, some people are watching fearfully to see if Trump's public critique of the penny will affect their business.
Alan Fleming of Scotland owns Penny Press Factory, one of a number of companies around the world that manufacture machines that flatten and stamp coins.
"A lovely retired gentleman in Boston sold me over 100,000 uncirculated cents a couple of years ago but he doesn't have any more," Fleming wrote. "I will need to purchase new uncirculated cents within the next 12 months to keep my machines supplied and working!"
Brentley Joyce, 8, and Hunter Kimbel, 7, look at a souvenir penny from a penny press machine March 2 at the American Dream mall in East Rutherford, N.J.
Regardless of what happens to niche businesses like Fleming's, penny defenders say they're an important tool for lubricating the economy even if they're a money-losing proposition.
Since the invention of money, humankind has wrangled with the question of small change, how to denominate amounts so small that the metal coin itself is actually worth more.
In 2003, Thomas J. Sargent and another economist wrote "The Big Problem of Small Change," billed as "the first credible and analytically sound explanation" of why governments had a hard time maintaining a steady supply of small change because of the high costs of production.
Brentley Joyce, 8, uses a penny press machine March 2 at the American Dream mall in East Rutherford, N.J.
Why pay money for coins?
In a digital world with the line blurring between the real and the virtual, tactile coins are reassuring.
"What this all tells you about the United States as a country is that it's an incredibly conservative country when it comes to money," said Ute Wartenberg, executive director of the American Numismatic Society.
Pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters are sometimes designed by artists laser-sculpting tiny portraits of leaders and landmarks using special software.
"It's pretty cool because when I tell people what I do I just say my initials are on the penny," Joseph Menna, the 14th Chief Engraver of the United States Mint, said in the 2019 film "Heads-Up: Will We Stop Making Cents?"
Fleming hopes some lobbying may help: "Maybe we should take a trip to Washington and ask to speak to President Trump and Elon Musk and see if we can cut a deal on buying millions of pennies from them."
