We’ve all heard the saying “Find a penny pick it up; all day long you’ll have good luck.” Well, today on my walk with our Beagle Nick (and yes, we’ve applied to adopt one of the 1,500 abused beagles recently rescued) there it was on the curb: a somewhat shiny copper coin. I immediately picked it up and said the saying.
Well, did you know the saying has a second part? The rest says “Give it to a faithful friend; then your luck will never end.” It’s a powerful message as is another saying on a penny that we often overlook: “In God We Trust.” Yep, every time you see a penny you might have good luck and you get a gentle reminder to trust God. It’s not always easy though, is it? Penny for your thoughts on this?
For reasons I won’t go into here, lately I’ve been struggling with that. Yes, I say a million times “Jesus, I trust in You” as we’re reminded through the Divine Mercy, but mercy me, give me a sign!
Today’s penny reminded me of all this as I read a blog from Tania Stephens who wrote the tiny penny is not flashy or loud, but we can use one to serve as a reminder to surrender and trust. Even if it’s only one cent.
Proverbs 3:5-6
Easy to read but harder to live out, right? I do ask the Lord for guidance every day and all day but when I hear silence or “wait” instead of “yes,” I struggle. Then I remember Psalm 25:1 that reads, “In you Lord my God, I put my trust.” Say it out loud. Stop the worrying and the doubting. Stop trying to control the outcome. Into His hands release it all.
As Tania reminded me, trusting God doesn’t mean we never have questions, it doesn’t mean we don’t overthink and catastrophize, and it doesn’t mean we never feel afraid or angry. As my Bible study friends once so supportively and affirmingly told me, “He knows you’re angry Carla and He’s okay with that.”
Amen and Alleluia.
These least of our monetary system are actually somewhat priceless and worth more than you think when you consider the powerful words on each one. Sadly, so many overlook them and don’t think a penny is worth picking up. I hope to change that.
So, I’ve decided I’m going to hang on to the penny I found today and maybe I’ll start dropping pennies here and there for others, and those faithful friends mentioned in the saying, to find. It’s all starting to make cents.
About Those Pennies
The penny was one of the first coins made by the U.S. Mint after its establishment in 1792. Its current design has President Abraham Lincoln on the “obverse” heads side and the “E Pluribus Unum” Union Shield on the reverse tails side.
The coin has gone through many designs since its inception as a representation of one-hundredth of a dollar. The U.S. Mint’s official name for it is “cent” and the U.S. Treasury’s official name for it is “one cent piece.” What we call a “penny” is derived from the British coin called a “pence.”
The “In God We Trust” appeared for the first time on pennies when the U.S. Congress passed the Act of March 3, 1865 authorizing the use of the motto.
The future of pennies has been debated often and the fluctuating price of copper periodically caused a penny shortage as people hoarded them for their perceived value. As a result, the U.S. Treasury lost tens of millions of dollars ever year producing pennies including a reported $85.3 million in losses for producing nearly 3.2 billion pennies through 2024 fiscal year. It’s currently estimated that the cost to mint one cent was 3.69 cents. I’m no math major but that doesn’t make cents!
That same year about a quarter trillion pennies were estimated to be in circulation equally more than 700 pennies for each person in the U.S. That’s a lot of pennies but sadly many Americans simply throw pennies away and most modern vending machines don’t even take them. Most Americans don’t actually spend pennies at all but rather keep them in a basket or drawer at home, or return them to a bank, or cash them in at coin counting kiosks. What all this means is that pennies must be continuously replaced with newly minted…and costly…copper coins. This is done so for them more than any other coins.
A solution was in need.
It takes an act of Congress literally to fix things and In April of 2025 the “Common Cents Act” bill was introduced to formalize an end to penny production for general circulation and require cash transactions to be rounded to the nearest nickel. That same year President Trump instructed Secretary of the Treasure, Scott Bessent, to halt penny production. Sadly, no bill to eliminate or cease production of the penny has yet passed but Bessent has the authority to suspend coin production upon determining new ones are no longer needed.
Regardless of how one feels about it, in May of last year the U.S. Treasury announced that the Mint had stopped purchasing penny planchets and production would cease. The last penny produced for general circulation was minted at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia on November 12, 2025 and the Federal Reserve stated it would continue to recirculate pennies for “as long as possible.”
What does all this mean? It means those pennies you have are indeed priceless. So is the wording on them.
That wording is also found on all U.S. currency. In fact, “In God We Trust” is the official motto of the United States and was first added to coins in 1864. It became mandatory on all U.S. currency following a law passed in 1955. Picking up a $20 bill might not have the same “all day long you’ll have good luck” history to it, but it won’t hurt to read those words each time you see one. It might be worth your while.
One last little tidbit kinda related to all this: the Penny Loafer. I loved them in college. Bass Weejuns were all the rage and now I love knowing the coins were put in them were actually talismans of good luck.
Hisotrically, that wasn’t the intent of the laceless shoes introduced by G.H. Bass who based their style on Norwegian fishermen’s slip-ons nearly a century ago. The popular “Weejun” was named for its Norwegian roots. Who knew?! The design featured a leather strap across the top with a small cutout, which prep schoolers used to pop a penny in and the trend went viral. Voila! The “penny loafer” was born.
Beyond Words 