In 1952, the Mint considered replacing the Lincoln cent with a new design by Mint Chief Engraver
Gilroy Roberts, but Mint officials feared that the incoming
Eisenhower administration would be hostile to replacing a Republican on the cent. Several thousand
1955 pieces were struck with a doubled die, and display doubling of the date. The Mint was aware of the pieces, and knew they were somewhere within a large production lot, but opted to release them, rather than destroy the entire lot. The variety did not become widely known until several years later. On Sunday morning, December 21, 1958, President Eisenhower's press secretary,
James Hagerty, issued a press release announcing that a new reverse design for the cent would begin production on , 1959. The new design, by
Frank Gasparro, had been developed by the Treasury in consultation with the Lincoln Sesquicentennial Commission. Approved by the President and by Secretary of the Treasury
Robert B. Anderson, the new design featured the
Lincoln Memorial in
Washington, D.C. The redesign came as a complete surprise, as word of the proposal had not been leaked. The coin was officially released on , 1959, the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, although some pieces entered circulation early. The selected design was the result of an internal competition among the Mint's engravers. Gasparro did not go in person to see the Lincoln Memorial, a place he had never visited. According to Anderson, Gasparro created an "impressive" image of the Memorial, however, Taxay states that the design "looks at first glance like a trolley car". Numismatic historian
Walter Breen describes Gasparro's design as "an artistic disaster". There was considerable public excitement over the "small date" and "large date" 1960 and 1960-D cents, with the small dates being the rarer. The Mint feared the interior of the zero as punched into the die would break away during the coining process, giving the zero a filled-in appearance. To reduce the chance of this happening, the Mint enlarged the date. Sealed bags of 1960 cents, with a face value of $50, sold for as much as $12,000. Prices for the small date coins, of which approximately two million had been struck at Philadelphia, continued to increase until 1964, when the bubble burst. Approximately of the Denver small date (out of a total mintage of 1.5 billion) were struck, and are not particularly rare. Bowers points out that there are enough of the 1960 Philadelphia small date known to supply every member of the
American Numismatic Association, and every subscriber to the major coin periodicals. The composition of the coin was changed again slightly in 1962. Mint officials felt that deletion of the tin content would have no adverse effect on the wearing qualities of the coin, whereas the manufacturing advantages to be gained with the alloy stabilized at 95% copper and 5% zinc would be of much benefit. Congressional authority for this modification was contained in an Act of Congress approved on September 5, 1962.
Changes in composition ; an experiment in removing copper from the Lincoln cent entirely Copper prices began to rise in 1973, to such an extent that the intrinsic value of the coin approached a cent, and citizens began to hoard cents, hoping to realize a profit. The Mint decided to switch to an aluminum cent. Over a million and a half such pieces were struck in the second half of 1973, though they
were dated 1974. At congressional hearings, representatives of the vending machine industry testified that aluminum cents would jam their equipment, and the Mint backed away from its proposal. Mint director
Mary Brooks sought the return of samples which had been distributed to members of Congress, but 14 remained missing, with the recipients affecting not to know what had become of them. One aluminum cent was donated to the
Smithsonian Institution for the National Numismatic Collection; Recognizing that a change from the current copper composition was still inevitable, Congress passed Public Law 93–441 on October 11, 1974, declaring "[w]henever in the judgment of the Secretary of the Treasury such action is necessary to assure an adequate supply of coins to meet the national needs, he may prescribe such composition of copper and zinc in the alloy of the one-cent piece as he may deem appropriate." In 1981, faced with another rise in the price of copper, the Mint decided to change the composition of the cent to copper-covered zinc. After contract difficulties and production delays, the first such cents were struck at the
Philadelphia Mint (without mintmark) on , 1982. Denver did not convert to the new composition until . A few pieces were struck by error in bronze dated 1983 and are extremely rare. A number of small changes were made to the obverse design in the 1990s and early 2000s. == Lincoln Bicentennial cents (2009) ==