Lincoln penny to change one more time

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SPRINGFIELD — The Lincoln Memorial is going the way of the wheat.

Jewelry boxes and dresser drawers that now hold the retired wheat pennies might soon be filled with pennies bearing the Lincoln Memorial.

On Thursday, the 2010 Lincoln penny will debut a brand new reverse design. The public is invited to the official launch ceremony for the nation’s new Lincoln “Preservation of the Union” penny at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum at 9:30 a.m. Thursday. Children 18 years and younger will receive a new 2010 Lincoln “Preservation of the Union” penny to commemorate the event.

Actually, the Lincoln Memorial penny was retired a year ago. Four different designs were issued during 2009 to make the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth and highlight four major aspects of his life: His birth and childhood in Kentucky, his formative years in Indiana, his professional life in Illinois and his presidency in Washington, D.C.

With the ending of the bicentennial year comes one more redesigned reverse that will appear on pennies from this year forward. The coin’s reverse design features the union shield and is designed to be emblematic of Lincoln’s preservation of the United States of America as a single and united country.

The union shield features 13 vertical stripes joined by a single horizontal bar at the top with the inscription “E Pluribus Unum” (Out of many one). This symbolizes the original 13 states joined together in a single compact union. A scroll appears across the shield with the denomination “One Cent” and “United States of America” appears above the shield.

The heads side of the coins will continue to feature Victor David Brenner’s likeness of President Lincoln, introduced in 1909, and the motto “In God We Trust.”

The union shield penny will be the seventh in the history of the Lincoln penny, which was introduces in 1909. The first design used from 1909 to 1958 featured the sheaves of wheat, followed by the Lincoln Memorial from 1959 to 2008.

According to the United States Mint, the union shield penny was chosen from 18 designs. The designs were reviewed by the Commission of Fine Arts and the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee before the selection of the union shield design was officially announced on Nov. 12, 2009.

Thursday’s event will be the second time in less than a year that a new penny has been formally released in Springfield. On Aug. 13, U.S. Mint officials and others came to Springfield for the release of the third 2009 Lincoln bicentennial penny, which commemorated Lincoln’s professional life.

The first launch was Feb. 12, Lincoln’s birthday, in Lincoln’s birthplace of Hodgenville, Ky. The second launch, held in May in Lincoln City, Ind., depicted Lincoln’s formative years and as a young adult in Indiana. The fourth launch, held in November in Washington D.C., will honor Lincoln’s presidency.

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Where can you find them?

Unlike the state quarters program, which allowed collectors to find the quarters at local banks, the new Lincoln pennies won’t be available that way.

Robin Johnson, teller supervisor at Citizens First National Bank in Princeton, said many customers come in looking for the commemorative coins, but banks aren’t able to physically order pennies.

“It’s just a fluke if they come in,” she said.