With the U.S. Mint having struck its final one-cent coin, coin collector and rare-coin YouTuber Justin Couch says the question is no longer whether the penny is fading into history, but what everyday people should do with the ones already sitting in jars, drawers, piggy banks, and forgotten coffee cans across the country.
In a recent video, Couch argues that casually cashing in old pennies at face value may be the worst option, especially for anyone holding older copper coins, overlooked mint errors, or even sealed rolls from 2025, the year now being treated by many collectors as the final chapter in the long life of the American cent. His advice is not simply to hoard everything blindly, but to slow down, separate what matters, and understand that not all pennies are equal anymore.
That is really the key point running through his entire discussion. The end of minting does not mean every penny suddenly becomes a treasure, but it does mean many people are about to make fast decisions with coins that may be worth more than they realize.
The First Thing Justin Couch Says: Don’t Rush To Dump Them
Couch opens with a pretty direct warning. Now that the penny has reached the end of the line, people are going to wonder whether they should haul their jars to the bank, dump them into a counting machine, or just get rid of them because they are no longer being minted.
His answer is that this should not be a knee-jerk decision, especially if the coins include older copper cents.
According to Couch, pennies made before 1982 are where the first real difference starts, because those coins were struck with 95% copper and only a small amount of zinc. After 1982, the composition changed, and most pennies became overwhelmingly zinc with only a thin copper coating. That means a pre-1982 penny is not just a one-cent coin in the usual sense. In his view, it is a small copper item whose metal value alone already exceeds face value.
Couch explains that with copper around $4.94 per pound and older pennies weighing about 3.1 grams, the melt value of a copper cent works out to a little over three cents per coin. In other words, the copper versions are already worth nearly triple their face value in raw metal terms, even if actually melting them remains illegal.
That is why he does not think people should casually send those coins off at one cent each. Once they are gone, they are gone, and there is at least a reasonable argument that they may become more desirable over time.
Separate The Copper From The Zinc Before You Do Anything Else
If there is one practical step Couch clearly recommends, it is sorting.
For him, the first job is to split older copper cents from the later zinc ones, because that immediately tells you which pennies at least have a metal-value argument behind them and which ones mostly do not. Since 1982 was the transition year, he reminds viewers that not every 1982 penny is the same. Some are copper and some are zinc, which means the only reliable way to know the difference is to weigh them.
The copper ones, he says, come in at about 3.11 grams, while the zinc versions weigh about 2.5 grams.
That is important because a lot of people hear “pre-1982” and assume the sorting job is simple, but Couch points out that 1982 itself is messy enough to deserve real attention. It was a split year, and those split years are exactly where collectors can make mistakes or, in rare cases, find something much better than ordinary pocket change.
His broader point is sensible. Before you cash anything in, at least separate the pennies that have obvious base-metal value from the ones that mostly do not. If nothing else, that gives you options.
Before You Cash In A Single Penny, Search For Errors And Key Dates
Couch is especially strong on this point, and it is probably the most important part of his advice for ordinary people.
Before anyone turns in old pennies, he says they should search them for mint errors, rare dates, and unusual varieties, because the difference between an ordinary coin and a valuable one can be enormous. He uses the famous 1943 copper penny as the best-known example. Since 1943 cents were supposed to be made of steel, a copper version from that year is one of the great American coin rarities, and Couch notes that one sold for $840,000 at auction.
That, of course, is the dream find, and he freely acknowledges it is a needle-in-a-haystack coin. But his larger point is that people focus too much on the most famous rarity and forget there are many smaller but still meaningful wins hiding in change jars. As he tells it, there are also pennies worth $50, $90, $100, or $500, depending on the date, mintmark, or error.
He highlights one in particular: the 1982-D small date copper cent, which collectors have chased for years. Couch says if someone finds a 1982 penny with a Denver mintmark, the small date style, and a weight around 3.1 grams, they may have something highly significant.
This is where his advice becomes especially practical. You do not need to believe every penny will skyrocket to understand that it would be foolish to ignore possible varieties before cashing them in at face value. Once they are mixed back into the system, that chance is lost.
Coinstar Is The Worst Move, In His View
On one point, Couch is not subtle at all.
He says he would never recommend Coinstar for pennies, or really for anything like this, because the fee takes too much off the top. In his view, if you decide you really do want to cash in your ordinary cents, taking them to the bank is the far better route because you can usually redeem them at full value rather than surrendering ten or fifteen percent to a machine.
That is not glamorous advice, but it is hard to argue with. If a person has already decided the pennies are not worth sorting, saving, or selling, then there is very little sense in paying a fee to get less than one cent per cent.
Couch is really telling viewers to avoid the worst of both worlds: surrendering coins with potential while also paying someone to take them.
There May Already Be A Retail Market For Copper Pennies
One of the more interesting parts of Couch’s video is his point that people are already buying copper pennies right now.
He says sellers can move them online by the bag, by the pound, or by quantity on platforms like eBay and Whatnot, which suggests there is already a collector or speculation market forming around these older cents. That does not mean everyone should become an online coin dealer overnight, but it does mean there may be alternatives between “keep everything forever” and “dump it all at the bank.”
He also points to the unusual hype around 2025 penny rolls, saying people are already paying inflated prices online simply because these are being treated as the last circulating one-cent coins. In one example he cites, two rolls with a total face value of one dollar were being offered for about $20 plus shipping.
That kind of premium may not last forever, and some of it is obviously driven by temporary hype, but it does show how quickly collector psychology can attach itself to a coin once the story changes. A coin that looked ordinary a year ago can suddenly feel like the end of an era, and markets often move on emotion as much as logic in moments like that.
There May Be Smarter Ways To Redeem Them Than The Bank
Couch also mentions a grocery store promotion in which pennies were being accepted at double face value, essentially two cents per coin, in the form of a gift card.
He presents that as a smart middle-ground option for people who do not want to sort endlessly for errors, do not want to speculate on long-term copper prices, and do not care about holding the coins indefinitely. A promotion like that, if available locally, may beat the bank and certainly beats a fee-based coin machine.
His logic is straightforward. The store gets customer traffic and possibly profits from the coins later, while the customer gets a better return than face value. For people who are not collectors but still do not want to give away possible value cheaply, that may be the most practical route.
Couch’s larger point here is that the end of the penny may open up more creative resale and redemption options than people assume. Once a coin stops being made, the ordinary rules around convenience often start to shift.
Don’t Panic, But Don’t Be Careless
Justin Couch clearly sees the end of the penny as both a sentimental moment and a practical one.
He notes that the U.S. Mint held a final striking ceremony and says U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach struck the last circulating cent, bringing to a close more than two centuries of one-cent coin production. He also points to the economics behind the decision, saying the cost to make a penny had climbed to roughly 3.69 cents, which made the coin increasingly difficult to justify in a world that is becoming more digital by the year.
Still, his actual advice is not emotional. It is methodical.
Do not dump older pennies without sorting them. Separate the copper from the zinc. Check for key dates, varieties, and errors before doing anything else. Avoid Coinstar. Consider whether local promotions, bank redemption, or online sales make more sense for your situation. And if you believe copper values may rise over time, then holding at least some pre-1982 copper cents may be smarter than cashing them at one cent each just because that is what the denomination says.
That is really the takeaway from Couch’s video. The penny may be done as a newly minted coin, but that does not mean the pennies already in circulation have become worthless leftovers. In many cases, the opposite may be true. The people who take a little time now to sort, weigh, and think before they act are the ones most likely to avoid regretting what they gave away too cheaply.
Raised in a small Arizona town, Kevin grew up surrounded by rugged desert landscapes and a family of hunters. His background in competitive shooting and firearms training has made him an authority on self-defense and gun safety. A certified firearms instructor, Kevin teaches others how to properly handle and maintain their weapons, whether for hunting, home defense, or survival situations. His writing focuses on responsible gun ownership, marksmanship, and the role of firearms in personal preparedness.
