COSTA MESA, CA.- Not all handfuls of pennies are created equal. Stack’s Bowers Galleries, the nation’s premier auction house for rare coins, set a record that is unlikely to ever be broken, selling 696 2025-dated cents or “pennies” for more than $16 million today.

The 696 pennies were assembled into 232 3-coin lots, each composed of a circulation strike example from the Philadelphia Mint, a circulation strike example from the Denver Mint, and a special penny struck in 24 karat (.9999) gold. Each of the coins was struck with the special Omega privy mark, denoting them as the last circulation strike cents ever struck.

The mintage of 232 recognizes the 232 years of penny production in the United States from the genesis of the denomination in 1793 to the recent suspension of production for circulation in 2025. The first of the 232 sets, sold as the first lot in the sale, included the first of the Omega pennies to be struck in Philadelphia and Denver, plus the first of the Omega pennies in gold. The sets up for auction were assembled the same way through the 232rd such set, which included the very last circulating pennies intended for issuance struck at Philadelphia and Denver, along with the final Omega Penny in gold.

The set of the final Omega Pennies, auctioned as Lot 10232, sold for $800,000. That lot also included the steel dies used by the United States Mint to make the coins, now cancelled so no future examples can be struck.

The final set was one of 17 lots to sell for $100,000 or more. The other sets to cross the $100,000 threshold included sets numbered 1, 2, and 3, the first 3 sets struck and the first 3 sets sold, Set 231 (the second to last set struck), and 14 more that included coins that received higher than average grades from PCGS, an industry-leading grading and certification service.

Coins are graded on a 70-point sale, with MS-70 designating a perfect coin. Copper coins are also graded based upon their color, with an RD suffix referring to copper coins with no tarnish. Most coins struck for circulation are made with microscopic flaws that would cause them to receive a grade lower than 70. While the specially struck Omega Pennies in gold were mostly graded MS-69, the Omega Pennies struck in standard copper-plated zinc received grades ranging from MS-63 RD to MS-67 RD, with most graded MS-64 RD or MS-65 RD. Tiny spots, impact marks, or fingerprints can diminish a penny’s grade.

“It’s an extraordinary honor to again be selected to partner with the United States Mint to offer exciting numismatic rarities to the collecting public,” noted Stack’s Bowers Galleries President Brian Kendrella. “They captured the public imagination like few rare coins we’ve ever handled. Even our staff of expert numismatists, who see the world’s most famous and valuable rare coins day in and day out, were excited by the chance to handle the very last pennies struck before the suspension of production.”

While most lots early in the auction brought final prices in the $50,000 to $60,000 range, those sold among the last 50 uniformly brought prices of $65,000 to $80,000. “As an auction like this continues, bidders realize the available supply is diminishing minute by minute,” Kendrella said. “Since no Omega Pennies have ever been sold before today, we watched the market develop in real time.”

Slated for a 9 AM Pacific (Noon Eastern) start, the beginning of the auction was delayed by an hour as the company had to ramp up its website bandwidth due to an unprecedented amount of interest and website traffic overwhelming company servers. “We’ve never seen buzz about rare coins and coin collecting like this,” Kendrellaadded. “It’s rare that rare coins make newspaper headlines, but this auction has shown that even a penny can be a superstar.”