Physical money seems increasingly old-fashioned—cash isn’t quite dead, but its use has been dropping for years as people rely increasingly on cards and apps to pay for their stuff. While there are still economic use cases for paper currency and even some of the higher-value coinage in circulation, there is one piece of physical currency that has almost become absurd in its uselessness: the humble penny. It currently costs almost three cents to make one, and all they do is pile up in jars and junk drawers.
Pennies are still money, of course, and you can cash them in at a Coinstar machine (for a fee) or your bank (if you’re willing to pay yourself less-than-minimum wage to roll them up). But there are actually other uses for the pennies that accumulate in your life.
Sell them
Officially, every penny is worth exactly one cent. In reality, not all pennies are created equal, and some of the pennies you have in that jar might be worth a lot more:
Pre-1982 pennies. Prior to early 1982, the U.S. penny was composed of about 95% copper. Copper is actually worth a fair amount of money—currently between $2 and $3 per pound. It takes roughly 150 older pennies to make a pound, so the math works out. Except, of course, for the fact that it is actually illegal to melt down nickels and pennies for profit (you can melt them for other uses). Most legitimate scrap dealers won’t accept pennies, and even melting them down at home probably won’t work because most copper scrap come in the form of tubing, piping, and other construction materials—dealers will be suspicious of some weird, lumpy copper bar.
But! You can still make some money with older pennies because there is a market for them. A quick scan of eBay will show you a lot of folks selling old pennies in bulk at reasonable profit margins (a lot of these sales involve apocalypse “preppers” who think the metal will have value when civilization collapses). In 2022, for an extreme example, a family in Los Angeles found one million pennies in their father’s old house. Worth $10,000 on paper, the family sold them (they initially sought $25,000 because of the possibility of rare pennies in the mix, but wouldn’t comment on the final sale price).
Rare pennies. If you have a bunch of old pennies lying around, it might be worth going through them to look for rare examples that can be worth a fair amount of money on their own. While it takes an expert’s eye to evaluate coins effectively, there are a few quick things you can look for:
Wheat pennies. Minted between 1909 and 1958, a “wheat” penny has two stalks of wheat on the back side. All “wheaties” are worth something (about four cents for a common one), and some wheaties are worth thousands of dollars. Some of the really, really rare ones can be worth millions. If you have a lot of wheaties in your change jar, it might be worth consulting a dealer to see if any are truly worth something. If not, you can still make some money selling them in bulk for more than regular pennies get.
Rarities and low-mintage. It takes a lot more work, but identifying rare pennies by their mint mark, date, and mistakes like double-die strikes (that create a “doubled” effect on the lettering) can help sort the truly valuable pennies from the rest. While you can try your hand at this, you’ll still need to consult with an expert to figure out if your penny is truly valuable or just a curiosity.
Tile them
Pennies have more than just monetary value, of course. Even if the metal modern pennies are made from isn’t very valuable, pennies have one spectacular use in home design: as tiles. If you’re considering a penny-tile floor in your home, for example, using actual pennies results in an affordable, durable, and kind of awesome-looking floor.
Pennies can also be used to decorate table tops, mirror frames, and just about anything else. The key is to clean and shine your pennies before you apply them, because that sparkling coppery shimmer is what’s going to sell these pennies as decor instead of spare change. Luckily, cleaning pennies is pretty easy—you just need some white vinegar, some salt, and a cloth.
Weights
If you have actually tried to cart pennies to your bank in an attempt to cash them in, you know that pennies can be surprisingly heavy. They are made of metal, after all. If you have a bunch of pennies lying around, though, you can use their mass to your advantage by turning them into flexible, effective weights. By inserting pennies into a hem, you can straighten out curtains and get them to hang properly—and because of the penny’s modular nature, you can add or subtract them until you have the precise number inserted for the desired effect. Similarly, pennies can be glued or otherwise attached to anything you might want to weigh down—from light pull chains that bounce around too much when you yank them to unobtrusive paperweights stopping your documents from flying around the room.
Another way to use pennies as weights? When you’re baking. If you’re planning to blind-bake a pie crust, you might need pie weights to stop your crust from bubbling and puffing. But if you have a bunch of old pennies you don’t need to spend money on special weights—just line your crust with parchment paper or foil, pop some pennies in there (you can wash them first if you want, though they won’t touch the crust), and ta-da! A perfect pie crust—and a reusable set of pie weights.