USA gets new pennies. Joy.

[AgentDrake]

Ya know, I sorta liked the NORMAL coins. Before the US Mint got bored and started screwing with our money.... The Quarters, those were okay. The nickels are sorta stupid. The dollars are sorta weird. This is... yeah.
 

http://www.usmint.gov/pressroom/index.cfm?action=press release&ID=947

Sigh. Oh well.

[FingolfinFinwe]

I've been hoping that they'd just get rid of the penny altogether.  Takes more time dealing with them than they're worth.  Then again I was all for the 1 dollar coin and that went over almost as well as The Weight of a Legacy in Expanded.   

[Gate Troll]

The Lincoln cent was unveiled in 1909 as part of a wave of coin redesigns pushed by Theodore Roosevelt an to celebrate the centennial of Lincoln's birth. The new cent was designed by Victor David Brenner and the first version featured a portrait of Lincoln on the obverse (front) and wheat stalks on the reverse (back) with the letters VDB underneath the wheat stalks. The new design was immensely popular with the public and so many people stood in front of the mint that each person could only get a dollar's worth of the new cents. So popular were they that street vendors started selling them for up to 15 cents apiece! The designers initials on the back of the coin proved to be unpopular however, so they were removed after only 27 million had been struck at the Philadelphia mint (no mint-mark) and only 0.4 million at the San Francisco mint ('S' mint mark). In 1918 Brenner's initials were add to the obverse  Up until 1943, when the content was changed to steel because of a shortage of copper due to WW2, the metal content was 95% copper and 5% tin and zinc, same as its predecessor, the indian head cent. During 1943 the content was 100% steel with a very thin layer of zinc but it was unpopular due to the fact that it could be easily confused with dimes. In 1944 the mint adopted a new alloy that re-used spent shell casings and it was used until the 1946 when the original composition was resumed. In 1959, the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's birthday the reverse was changed to feature the back of the Lincoln memorial, and the new reverse was designed by Frank Gasparro. In 1962 the alloy was changed again to 95% copper and 5% zinc, deleting the tin completely as it was felt that it was unnecessary. During 1973 there were plans for shifting the composition of the cent to aluminum because of the rising cost of copper and indeed over 1.5 million were struck in 1973 (dated 1974) and a few were handed to the members of Congress for inspection. However due several problems with using aluminum (such as the inability for an X-ray to detect it if swallowed) it was never released (though a dozen still remain unaccounted for although it is illegal to own) and the one of the only two specimens not missing or melted down rests in the Smithsonian while the other is held in a private collection. In 1982 the metal content changed drastically to  2.5% copper and 97.5% zinc. The alloy has not changed since and plans have made for 2009 to celebrate Lincoln's 200th birthday by changing the reverse as AgentDrake said. Personally as a coin collector I had hoped that starting 2010 they might change it back to the Indian Head design or perhaps to a portrait of Teddy Roosevelt but they seem to have plans to keep Abe on the obverse and design yet another reverse. Oh well... 

The new reverses:

[sickofpalantirs]

can you say, waste of federal money?
JK LOL...maybe not...IDK

[HawkeyeSPF]

Actually all these new designs are quite a money maker for our dear federal government. Of course, I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling that our Treasury Department should only concern itself with manufacturing the money and not trying to actually make money while doing it, but whatever.

[SomeRandomDude]

The Penny needs to be gotten rid of. It costs more to make it than its worth.

Or drastically reformed.

[MR. Lurtzy]

I thought they were getting rid of the penny...

[FingolfinFinwe]

I think that they thought about it and decided to keep it... for some stupid reason.  It costs 13 cents to create each penny.   

[SomeRandomDude]

Actually, 1.3 cents.

[Gate Troll]

Actually, 1.3 cents.

Which is why they should: make it smaller, switch compostion to nickel and start minting a two-cent piece of equal size and weight as the cent is now. Today they mint billions of cents a year. That should be switched to millions and the two-cent piece should be minted by the billions.  Even though this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-cent piece (United States coin) didn't go over well in its time there was really no need for it as there is now.

[FingolfinFinwe]

Actually, 1.3 cents.

Ah yes that seems more appropriate.

Sounds like a good call GT

[AgentDrake]

...Or we could keep some minor degree of check against inflation by losing a minuscule amount of money in the creation process....

No?

...Oh well. Just a thought. Yeah, I know it's more complicated than that, but still.

[MR. Lurtzy]

They took off "In God We Trust". Bastards.

[HawkeyeSPF]

It's probably just on the sides like with the dollar coins.

[Kralik]

I hate pennies! Much better to get rid of them altogether. Other than checking a tire's tread depth, what use are they? And they won't even help with that after this!