New Lincoln Pennies Unveiled: See Pictures Of Each Penny

The first of four new pennies chronicling Abraham Lincoln's rise from a small Kentucky cabin will be put into circulation Thursday to honor the 16th president's 200th birthday.

The coin's front is unchanged, but the reverse depicts a tiny log cabin, representing the one-room dwelling where Lincoln was born near Hodgenville, Kentucky.

The new one-cent piece is being unveiled by the U.S. Mint as part of Lincoln's bicentennial celebration, being held Thursday morning near his birthplace.

The remaining coins, set for release later this year, show other phases of Honest Abe's life: a young man reading while sitting on a log during his formative years in Indiana; Lincoln the state legislator speaking in front of the Illinois capitol; and the unfinished dome of the U.S. Capitol.

See all the pennies (AP Photos/US Mint):

Comments

[Tyrione]

01:48 AM on 02/13/2009

Nice to see they respected the US Constitution and didn't include, ``IN GOD WE TRUST'' as that was added by Eisenhower [which doesn't respect the 1st Amendment] and restores the rightful place of, ``E Pluribus Unum,'' to reflect how a Nation of Liberty is run by the Many and form the One when we are all The United States of America.

[karinova]

02:25 AM on 02/13/2009

Oh, it's on the front.
If they had left it off, conservatives would have lost their p00p completely.

http://www.usmint.gov/pressroom/index.cfm?action=Photo#2009LincolnOneCent

[deepintheheartoftejas]

02:39 PM on 02/13/2009

Uh, "IN GOD WE TRUST" has been on the penny since 1909. Eisenhower had nothing to do with it. It's been on every coin since 1938 (when the buffalo nickel, which didn't have it, was replaced with Jefferson nickel). The president who was responsible for it originally: Lincoln, in 1864, on the 2-cent coin. After that, there was generally a tradition of placing it on most of the larger silver and gold coins, but there were exceptions occasionally.Teddy Roosevelt ordered the phrase not included on the St Gaudens double eagle--as a matter of person taste he didn't believe God and money went together. But he said he's sign a bill if Congress chose to pass a law requiring it (in the spirit of democracy), which they did in 1908.

I believe Eisenhower was responsible for signing the bill that added the phrase to paper money, which had never featured it before.

[Smirk]

01:37 AM on 02/13/2009

They should've left out the bits of earth stuck to his feet and the mallet-like axe. They just look odd.

[karinova]

02:28 AM on 02/13/2009

I think that actually is a mallet-- the log appears to have a wedge in it, waiting to be... malleted. But I agree about the shadows. in relief like this, the effect is very"bits of earth stuck to his feet."

[Smirk]

01:12 PM on 02/13/2009

Thanks for explaining why it would be a mallet.

[Jafafa Hots]

12:32 AM on 02/13/2009

Always happy to see new coin designs. I do wonder, though, in the last one depicting the construction of the capitol building, why it doesn't show the enslaved human beings being forced to build it?

[karinova]

02:28 AM on 02/13/2009

Ouch!

[deepintheheartoftejas]

11:16 PM on 02/12/2009

First quarters, then the dollar, the nickel, and now the penny. This pretty much leaves the dime as the only coin unchanged in several decades (unless you count the half-dollar, but they stopped minting it for circulation in 2002. It's only available in US Mint collector-oriented stuff now). I wonder when they'll change its design.

Personally, I'm weary of all the changes in our currency, especially now that the State Quarter program has been extended with the National Parks that will last well into the 2020's. I'd like to see us return to beautifully designed and executed representations of Liberty on our coins, like we had for a century and a half. Congress should stop dictating designs to the mint, and let the mint choose from the best artists we have.

[gorgonopsid]

11:36 PM on 02/12/2009

Is that how it works? Congress dictates the designs? That would explain their unimaginative ugliness and lack of aesthetic merit.

[TerryOakland]

11:08 PM on 02/12/2009

Honoring Lincoln is great. Keeping the penny alive 20 years past its economic value is stupid. The United States Mint should have done the honors on the five-dollar bill.

[lornejl]

09:59 PM on 02/12/2009

A penny for your thoughts about this penny.

[harrymellon]

09:54 PM on 02/12/2009

That design looks like just another way to prepare people for getting used to being dirt poor and living in a shanty.

[Tyrione]

01:50 AM on 02/13/2009

Sorry, but it's a beautiful design reflecting Lincoln's humble beginnings which resulted in being the President of the United States of America.

What is key is the symbolic nature of his humble surroundings and reading [advancement through literacy] which help hone a keen mind.

[mummbleswers]

09:09 PM on 02/12/2009

I can't believe our broke ass government spent money on making new pennies - the copper it takes to make 'em is worth more than the damn cent!

[pepper47]

10:29 PM on 02/12/2009

Actually since the early eighties the amount of zinc has been increased to keep the copper value
well below a cent.................pre 1982 pennies have about 2 1/4 cents worth of copper.
you can still find them in your change. ...........I believe the mint should keep puting 1 cent of copper
in it, so the dollar can keep it's value ........would that work to some degree ??

[amirtalai]

12:42 AM on 02/13/2009

60 Minutes aired a report that while the penny is indeed now made with more zinc than copper, it does cost more then 1 cent to make each one.

[oscartucker]

10:41 PM on 02/12/2009

There are no pure copper pennies.

[Ghost of Mother Jones]

08:54 PM on 02/12/2009

We must always remember that it took a gay president to free the slaves.

[mummbleswers]

09:06 PM on 02/12/2009

Aaaaahahahaha, that's awesome.

[deepintheheartoftejas]

06:20 PM on 02/12/2009

Geeze, what's Abe doing on that second coin? Slacking off again, it looks like! He was hired to split wood, and there he is reading a book. Well, well, Mr. Lincoln, I'm sure they can find someone who will appreciate a job a bit more in this tough economy.

[Larry Stevens]

08:15 PM on 02/12/2009

That's what his dad would have said. Just remember, Thomas Lincoln took every penny Abe earned until he was 23. No wonder he hopped in a canoe and floated down the Sangamon as soon has he was emancipated.

[QueenTiye]

06:12 PM on 02/12/2009

This has to go to Facebook! :)

[QueenTiye]

06:10 PM on 02/12/2009

OH! I love this! Now everyone will be collecting pennies! :) How cool! :)

QT

[gorgonopsid]

06:08 PM on 02/12/2009

The art of medal design has declined greatly in the past century. The insistence of the designer(s) of these new coins in depicting optical perspective seems silly to me, but since the coins are too shallow to be considered relief any longer I suppose they felt justified in merely drawing the images without regard to their sculptural qualities. Compare quarters, dimes and nickels from the thirties through the nineties to get an idea of what we've lost through the treasury's efforts at conserving precious metals. Not only have the tactile qualities diminished, but the images of the presidents' portraits have degraded through so many translations. I wonder to what extent computers are used in designing and executing these coins today, and whether that could account for their awkwardness. That said, my favorite of the above series is The Railsplitter, since it's the most feeling and embodies more of the Lincoln legend than the others.

[ominous]

06:33 PM on 02/12/2009

i have to agree with you 100%. i've done some relief sculptures in the past and have done my fair share of research on relief work, there is definitely a diff between older and recent coin designs. maybe the newer coins are computer generated, that's a good theory. nothing beats a good pair of hand and eyes.

i do have to say that the designs above are way better than most of the coins that have come out recently, although that log cabin sucks. it just looks like a bunch of flat panels. maybe these are just bad photos.

[philopatris]

09:29 PM on 02/12/2009

The log cabin is very mediocre, the guy on the log is beneath comment, one of the ugliest coins I have ever seen, and I'm fairly well up on numismatics historically and collector wise, and the other two passable. I've always been kind of ashamed of the Lincoln Monument one also, with its blurry little shrimpy figure representing the great statue inside. None of these really come up to the sober old fashioned dignity of the wheat sheaves round ONE CENT that this design started out with in 1909. I was born in 1940 and it's not that the coins I grew up with had a beauty and dignity nobody COULD match now, beautiful as they were, it's that nobody the Mint employs FEELS like matching that beauty and dignity in modern or any other terms. Some of the state quarters are nice, and the collectors' gold and silver they make--but those mostly reproduce older designs.

[gorgonopsid]

09:44 PM on 02/12/2009

Of the possible federal commissions for artists, the postage stamps seem like a better design opportunity, and some great work has been done on them. Why is our currency so lacking in art and expertise? The engraving and draughtsmanship on our banknotes seems much inferior to some postage stamps. Perhaps the comittees choosing the currency designs are different with different criteria--still, you would think that artistic excellence would be desirable.

[johnnynyc]

05:54 PM on 02/12/2009

Is that that log cabin Obama grew up in?

[desertdweller]

06:37 PM on 02/12/2009

No, it's the home of the "Log Cabin Republicans." Official membership = 3832. Actual membership = 546,229.

[GeeBee]

06:53 PM on 02/12/2009

I hate you . You made me snort coffee out my nose. Now I have this picture stuck in my mind, of closeted Republicans peeking out the window of that cabin.

[olephart]

08:29 PM on 02/12/2009

It’s a house in San Diego that sold for a million two in 2006 that the owners are getting mortgage assistance on after their zero down, negative amortization ARM loan fell into arrears and they couldn’t get their second lien and HELOC refinanced.

[nirek]

04:52 PM on 02/12/2009

Nice.