The 232 special three-coin sets featuring the last circulating pennies ever produced sold for a combined $16.8 million at auction. The final set, which included the original dies used to strike the coins, sold for $800,000—the highest bid of the historic December 11 auction.
The special auction of nearly 700 rare pennies brought a small fortune—nearly $16.8 million—as collectors competed for the last circulating pennies ever produced by the U.S. Mint.
Auction Results
The 232 three-coin sets, each featuring a gold penny and a single penny from the final runs at the Mint's Philadelphia and Denver plants, went to winning bids totaling $16,764,500, according to Stack's Bowers Galleries.
The coin sets were auctioned individually in order of production:
- Set #1: Sold for $200,000
- Early lots: Most brought $50,000 to $60,000
- Final 50 sets: Prices ranged from $65,000 to $80,000
- Set #232 (with original dies): Sold for $800,000—the highest bid
Unprecedented Interest
"As an auction like this continues, bidders realize the available supply is diminishing minute by minute," said Brian Kendrella, president of Stack's Bowers Galleries. "Since no Omega Pennies have ever been sold before, we watched the market develop in real time."
The auction house had to delay the event for an hour to boost website bandwidth to accommodate the unprecedented traffic from interested bidders.
Expert Reactions
"What I thought would have sold for $40,000 to $45,000 sold for about $65,000 to $70,000, so almost 50% higher than we anticipated," said John Feigenbaum, publisher of rare coin price guide Greysheet and executive director of the Professional Numismatists Guild.
"We've never seen buzz about rare coins and coin collecting like this," Kendrella said. "It's rare that rare coins make newspaper headlines, but this auction has shown that even a penny can be a superstar."
Historical Significance
The 232 coin sets symbolized the 232 years since the penny's creation in 1793. Each of the auctioned pennies bears an omega (Ω) privy mark, marking the end of the penny era. The Treasury Department and U.S. Mint created the special run after President Trump ordered the cessation of penny production.