In 2024, making a single US penny cost about 3.7 cents. Then, on November 12, 2025, the Philadelphia Mint struck the last circulating penny. This animated explainer follows how it happened: the 2025 order to stop production and the Mint's final order of penny blanks, what a penny is really made of, why copper and zinc prices and fixed factory costs pushed it far above face value, why so many pennies vanish into jars, what the nickel's cost has to do with it, how cash rounding to the nearest five cents works, and what Canada, Australia and New Zealand learned when they dropped their smallest coins.

Chapters:

0:00 Intro

0:25 The Last Strike

1:17 What's Inside a Penny

2:24 The Metal Problem

3:36 The Coin Nobody Spends

4:36 Why the Penny Lasted So Long

5:26 At the Register

6:29 Does Rounding Cost You?

7:24 Canada Did It First

8:32 The Pennies Left Behind

• About 10 minutes, 1080p at 60 fps, with an English AI voiceover

• Original synthesized music and sound effects, mixed to -14 LUFS

• Original vector animation in a flat, neon explainer style

• Fact-checked: US Mint FY2024 coin costs, the 2025 decision and final strike, the 1943 steel cent, the 1982 switch to zinc, cash rounding, and Canada's 2013 phase-out

• Pennies remain legal tender. Education and entertainment only, not financial advice

The story of how America's smallest coin became too expensive to make.