Get rid of pennies and nickels altogether. It is absolutely inane for a government to mint money that is worth less than the cost of its creation. This could only happen in a completely dysfunctional country such as the U.S. Maybe U.S. lawmakers are afraid to admit that inflation has decimated the purchasing power of the dollar during the past 50 years.

We either need to get rid of pennies or mint them out of another cheaper metal. I would prefer getting rid of them altogether. I've personally never handed a cashier a penny in my entire life...completely useless.

I feel the useful life of the penny is over, especially since it costs to produce than it is worth. It is a great nostalgia piece, but useless in this economy. Round up or down the prices and synchronize the taxes. Let's get real and on with it.

Why are we bothering with redesigning pennies? Good grief! The US and the Mint have far greater issues to deal with.

What a waste of resources and taxpayer's money. Do away with the worthless coin. As in other countries, round up and down to nearist 5 cents.

It costs how much to mint a penny? To me just another example of someone in government having way to much time on their hands. How about government doing something constructive, like inventing a truth serum for politicians to prevent double speak.

While some people want to get rid of coins that cost more to make than they are worth, to some people, those who have to budget every single cent, pennies can be a life saver. I still bend over to pick up pennies I see in parking lots because I can remember when I didn't have enough money to eat more than crackers and potted meat. Also, I'd rather not make someone rich by rounding up to the nearest nickel or dime.

My husband still tracks every penny he earns and some might say why do that if you're comfortably well off and both of us will tell you that that is the only reason we are in good shape financially. We aren't rich, but we aren't saddled with a huge debt load either. If you want to have money to spend you save every penny you find or earn not throw them away like they are worthless.

Get rid of the penny. Costs too much to make and funny that the last comment implies that those who don't value the penny, don't value money. That has nothing to do with it. The cost of making the penny is twice what is worth so I would say that is NOT valuing money. Other countries (like Australia) have gotten rid of the penny and it worked out fine.

It is time to get real and eliminate both the penny and the nickel. How much money would our government save by making such a decision? Do an experiment: drop a few pennies and nickels and watch how many people just pass them by and don't even bother to pick them up. SIMPLIFY LIFE - ELIMINATE THESE WORTHLESS COINS!

Good idea kel, so now the 99 cent stores can go up a penny and become the $ stores, I'll go along with that. Besides, I hate pennies, sometime I think they breed and multiply in my pockets.

Do away with coinage and paper money all together! We live in the computer age. Everyone uses debit and credit cards, who deals with cash anymore?

We haven't been on the gold standard in decades.

And while we are at it, do away with checks! Last time I stood in line at the grocery store an old lady was writing a check, took 10 minutes just to fill the thing out!

We don't need coins, paper money or checks. These are a waste of resources, time, and money.

who gives a crap

the lincoln penny is one of the great american coins, honoring one of the great american presidents; a president whom arguably saved the nation during its greatest trial. these coins have given untold numbers of children their first coin collection; complete collections which today are worth thousands of dollars. there is also a tremendous amount of recent history in pennies (example: shell-casing pennies from actual shells fired in ww2 and salvaged to send home to make pennies or steel (zinc) pennies made also during ww2 as a result of metal shortages at home). lots of people have mint sets from their birth year; sets which would be incomplete without the great lincoln penny. i love the penny and have watched many changes as it has evolved over the years. "a penny saved is a penny earned!"

Keep the penny circulating. If we get rid of it....what do we do...round up to the nearest nickel, dime, quarter or what. Personally, I'm tired of paying too much for groceries, gas, etc. I don't want to give anyone more than they are do.

You want to dispose of inefficient currency? Then start with paper notes. Take a look at how long a paper dollar bill lasts (not to mention the germs it can carry) compared to a metal coin. And, I agree with "A Dad" when he says get rid of checks too. If you have a checking account, then get a debit card to go with it and ditch the checks. They're time consuming to fill out, to balance and to track when necessary. And they're not very "green" either. They're a waste of our natural resources. As for the future of coins, I'd like to see a different value set offered then what we have now. I'd like to see quarters, $1, $5, $20, and $100 coins only, no pennies, nickels or dimes. If you're truly, concerned about the losses imposed by missing those other coins then use a credit/debit card for your purchases.

Replace Lincolns profile with George Bush.
He deserves to be on a coin that is worthless.
On the back there should be an engraving of an oil rig.

When several new pennies were displayed on your web site, I did not see In God We Trust. It also did not show In God We Trust on the side. I am asking you people this question; where is the inscription, "In God We Trust on the new penny?" This web-site is where I go for the news. I hope you have an answer. I know already that a lot of people will not accept, or say they won't, the new penny without it. We will just ask for an old penny; the same way we do with the new gold dollar coin. We just politely say we would like a paper one dollar bill.

Why is our government wasting time and effort on this in the first place. Have we nothing better to waste our resources on these days? It's more valuable to melt down the pennies we have now and sell them to China as scrap copper than it is to mint more. Give me a break!

We need to stop using pennies. If we drop the penny there will be an open space in cash register drawers for a dollar coin! Millions of dollars would be saved every year if pennies weren't minted and dollar bills weren't printed.

Get rid of the penny and quarter and replace them with 20 and 30 cent coins. In another 5-10 years when inflation has further eroded the worth of money replace the nickel with a 40 cent piece. I would much rather deal with coins worth 10, 20, 30 and 40 cents. It makes for much less change in the pocket, and the government could probably produce much less new coins per year as a result, saving money and simplifying transactions.

The penny is valueless. They're difficult to spend (no machine takes them). Merchants give them away. Money is meant to facilitate commerce. The smallest unit of money should have some practical value: you should be able to buy something with it. You can't with the penny. It should have been removed long ago.

I don't think we should mint any more pennies, but I also do not think we should remove it altogether. Just keep the copper in circulation. Cut back on new mintings, most people don't care, the ones who do collect special coins are doing it to not spend them, have them fricken order them from the mint like those commercials we see for the Liberian $20 dollar-9/11 Commerative. And for the record, I've never been pissed off that I have a penny in my pocket, but those dollar coins I get from the Post Office actually get on my nerves. If you can't find a place that takes pennies, you are probabaly not in the US. If you can find a place that takes those Dollar coins, your LUCKY!!!

Viva Revolution! Overthrow the government! Democracy?? Not in the US, that's for sure! What a joke...

These are the same idiots that blew up the Twin Towers in NY and blamed terrorists...

The Federal Reserve, which distributes money to banks, pays face value for coins. If a coin costs less to manufacture than the face value, the Mint makes a profit. The Mint roughly makes $45 million a year in coin sales, the penny costs about 1.23 cents to produce and the nickle costs about 7.3 cents to produce, but the dime costs about 4.2 cents, the quarter costs about 10.2 cents, and the dollar coin costs about 16 cents. On the whole the Mint makes a profit producing coins.

They didn't redesign the penny for no particular reason, it's not a pointless endeavor. Just like the 50 state quarter project and the commemorative Lewis & Clark nickles, the pennies are being redesigned to celebrate part of our nations history, it's a keepsake. I plan on keeping some of each of the four designs. Those coins will have greater value in the future after they go back to the original design.

And those that want to drop the penny. Deal with it, it's the current system and it's not going to change. The penny is not the smallest unit - most transactions made by America's major firms are broken down to tenths, even hundreths of a penny and gas is priced to the third digit, i.e. $3.78(9) - that's the little 9 that you see at the pump - it actually means something.

So stop whining about the "valueless" penny. It's not going anywhere. There are worse things in life anyway.