Who Is on the Penny: Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the sixteenth President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his death. He led the Union through the American Civil War, issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, and championed the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery throughout the United States. Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865 at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. by John Wilkes Booth and died the following morning. He is widely considered one of the greatest US presidents, and his inclusion on the cent in 1909 marked the first time a real historical figure had appeared on a regular-issue US coin.

Victor David Brenner (1871–1924), a Lithuanian-born American sculptor and medalist who emigrated to New York in 1890, designed the Lincoln cent obverse. Brenner had studied under Oscar Roty in Paris and built a reputation for portrait medals and plaques before the Lincoln commission. President Theodore Roosevelt, who had befriended Brenner and admired a Lincoln plaque Brenner had created, directed the Mint to engage him for the 1909 redesign. The reverse wheat-ear design was also Brenner's work. Frank Gasparro later designed the Lincoln Memorial reverse (1959–2008), and Lyndall Bass designed the Union Shield reverse (2010–2025), engraved by Joseph Menna.

The Lincoln cent debuted in 1909 to mark the centennial of Lincoln's birth on February 12, 1809. Theodore Roosevelt had been working to elevate the artistic quality of US coinage and personally directed the commission to Brenner. The new cent replaced the Indian Head cent, which had been in production since 1859. It was a deliberate historical statement — the first US circulating coin to honor a named American rather than an allegorical Liberty figure. The design has remained continuously on the obverse since 1909, making it the longest-running portrait on any US circulating coin.

Abraham Lincoln: Biography of the Penny's Portrait Subject

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in a log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky — a fact commemorated on one of the four 2009 Bicentennial cent reverses. His family moved to Indiana in 1816 and to Illinois in 1830. Lincoln was largely self-educated, reading by firelight and borrowing books wherever he could find them. He taught himself law from Blackstone's Commentaries and was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1836.

Lincoln served in the Illinois state legislature from 1834 to 1842 and won election to the US House of Representatives in 1846, serving one term. He returned to law practice in Springfield, Illinois, and built a reputation as a skilled courtroom litigator. His 1858 Senate campaign against Stephen Douglas produced the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates, a series of seven public discussions on the question of slavery in the territories. Though Lincoln lost the Senate race, the debates made him a national figure.

Elected the sixteenth President in November 1860, Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861 — weeks after several Southern states had already seceded. The Civil War began with the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. Lincoln guided the Union war effort through four years of conflict, exercising executive powers broadly contested at the time, including the suspension of habeas corpus in certain military zones. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, declaring enslaved people in Confederate-held states to be free — a war measure that also reshaped the moral character of the Union cause.

Lincoln won re-election in November 1864 against Democrat George B. McClellan, delivering the Second Inaugural Address in March 1865 with its celebrated call for 'malice toward none, with charity for all.' The Civil War effectively ended with Confederate General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. Five days later, on April 14, Lincoln was shot by actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth while attending a performance at Ford's Theatre. He died the following morning, April 15, 1865, at the age of 56.

Lincoln's legacy reshaped the United States. The Thirteenth Amendment, which he championed and which was ratified in December 1865 after his death, abolished slavery. He is consistently ranked by historians among the two or three greatest US presidents, cited for his leadership during an existential national crisis, his eloquence, and his evolution on issues of civil rights. His face on the cent since 1909 reflects a national consensus, built over more than a century, that Lincoln represents an ideal of American perseverance and union.

Victor David Brenner: The Designer Who Put Lincoln on the Penny

Victor David Brenner was born in 1871 in Shavl, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire), and emigrated to New York City in 1890. He initially worked as an engraver in the city's jewelry district before developing an ambition for fine-art sculpture and medallic work. He traveled to Paris to study at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts under Oscar Roty, one of the leading medalists of the era and the inventor of the plaquette as a distinct art form. Brenner returned to New York with a European pedigree and a specialization in portrait medals — small, detailed bas-relief portraits in bronze.

By the early 1900s, Brenner had built a solid reputation among collectors and patrons. His Lincoln plaque, created from a life mask and hand casts of Lincoln made by sculptor Leonard Volk in 1860, caught the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt, who was then engaged in a broad campaign to raise the artistic standards of US coinage. (The same effort brought sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens to redesign the ten-dollar and twenty-dollar gold pieces.) Roosevelt met Brenner and was impressed enough to direct the US Mint to commission him for the cent redesign, timed to Lincoln's birth centennial in 1909.

The 1909 obverse portrait — Lincoln facing right, with the motto 'IN GOD WE TRUST' above (added to the cent by Roosevelt's specific request), 'LIBERTY' at left, and the date at right — was widely praised as a significant improvement over the previous Indian Head design. Brenner also designed the reverse wheat-ear motif. However, he placed his full initials 'V.D.B.' at the base of the reverse, between the wheat stalks, in a size and prominence that triggered immediate public controversy. Critics objected that no other US coin displayed a designer's initials so boldly. The Mint removed the initials within weeks of the coin's mid-August 1909 release, creating two distinct and now-famous varieties: the 1909-VDB (with initials) and the 1909 plain (without).

The most valuable consequence of that mid-1909 change was the 1909-S VDB: the San Francisco Mint had struck 484,000 cents with the VDB reverse before the recall instruction arrived. Those coins, already combining a lower-mintage mint mark with the short-lived reverse, became the key date of the entire Lincoln Wheat Cent series. Genuine examples in circulated grades bring $700–$2,500; Mint State examples command $5,000–$50,000 or more depending on grade. Brenner's initials quietly returned to the cent in 1918, placed on Lincoln's truncated shoulder in a location so small that most casual observers do not notice them. Brenner died in 1924, having secured his place in American numismatic history with a design that has now endured for well over a century.

US Cent Design History: From Large Copper to Lincoln Shield

The US one-cent coin has gone through several distinct design eras since the first cents were struck in 1793. The Lincoln era alone has seen five different reverse designs across 116 years of production.

Mint Mark History of the Lincoln Cent

The Lincoln cent has been struck at four US Mint facilities over its history, each identified by a mint mark appearing below the date on the obverse. Philadelphia, the primary production facility, did not use a mint mark on circulating cents for most of the Lincoln era — from 1909 through 2016, Philadelphia cents carried no mark (except for a 2017 special issue marking the 225th anniversary of the US Mint, which added a 'P'). Denver has struck Lincoln cents since 1911, consistently using a 'D' mint mark below the date. San Francisco struck circulating Lincoln cents from 1909 through 1955 and again from 1968 through 1974; since 1975, San Francisco has produced only proof and collectible cents, all bearing the 'S' mark.

West Point has struck certain commemorative and special-issue cents with a 'W' mint mark but has never produced Lincoln cents for general circulation. The mint mark position has remained consistent on the obverse below the date throughout the Lincoln era, though the overall obverse layout — Lincoln's portrait, 'LIBERTY,' 'IN GOD WE TRUST,' and the date — has been unchanged since 1909. Collectors building a complete Lincoln cent set by date and mint mark navigate more than 300 distinct date-and-mint combinations across the Wheat, Memorial, Bicentennial, and Shield eras.

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