Before Zinc Sense

As copied fro the Jewish World Review, 55 years ago today, February 12, 1959 the Treasury Department unveiled the new penny.

1959, the redesigned Lincoln penny, with an image of the Lincoln Memorial replacing two ears of wheat on the reverse side, went into circulation.

As a boy and teenager, I saved thousands of cents, easily more than a thousand wheat leaf pennies.  The collection that included every year of the wheat leaves, including the steel issues of 1943. After I left for college in 1978, one of my little brothers cashed cashed all of that in.  36 years later it still sticks in my craw.