Last U.S. cents sold at auction for a sum of $16.76 million were worth a pretty penny

To those who argue that the U.S. penny had no value: some coin collectors beg to differ.

In fact, they doled out millions for the final pennies circulated in the U.S. before the government ended the cent’s production back in November.

The U.S. Mint sold 232 three-cent sets for a whopping sum of $16.76 million at an auction last Thursday hosted by Stack’s Bowers Galleries.

The 232nd set — containing the last three pennies ever made — sold for $800,000. That bidder also got the three dies that struck those Lincoln cents.

John Kraljevich, director of numismatic Americana at Stack’s Bowers, said it was the kind of auction where you don’t know the items’ market value until people make their bids.

“I’ve been going to coin auctions for 40 years, and I can tell you, I’ve never seen anything like this, because there’s never been anything like this,” Kraljevich said.

Stack’s Bowers President Brian Kendrella said: “They captured the public imagination like few rare coins we’ve ever handled.”

When it was introduced in 1793, a penny could buy a biscuit or a piece of candy. Now most of them are tucked away into jars or junk drawers.

They can also be relics of history for coin collectors.

Each set comprised 2025 pennies struck at the Philadelphia Mint, the Denver Mint and a 24-karat gold penny to cap off the end of an era. Each cent also bore a unique Omega symbol.

There were 232 grouplets to reflect each year the coin had been embedded in American culture.

“American culture has incorporated the penny into our lexicon, into our pop culture, into all of this stuff,” Kraljevich said. “And I think for a lot of people, the ending of production of cents for circulation is an item of nostalgia.”

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Olivia Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.