The mourners had taken their seats. Many were dressed in black. Others wore veils and large hoop skirts, reminiscent of Victorian-era fashion.
When the clock struck 1:01 p.m. (a time, organizers said, representing the one-cent coin that costs nearly four cents to make), a brass trio started playing Amazing Grace.
“Make way for the Lincolns,” a woman announced, as six men wearing top hats and long black coats carried a white casket through the crowd.
Who, or what exactly, was being grieved that afternoon?
The penny.
Hundreds gathered at the base of the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday afternoon to mark the end of an era for the penny, after the U.S. Mint pressed the final coins last month.
President Donald Trump had called for the Treasury Department to stop making pennies in a Truth Social post in February, calling it a “wasteful” expense. Ending production, the Treasury said, would save the federal government $56 million per year. The final U.S. cents — 232 sets of three pennies — were soldat an auction earlier this month, raking in a whopping sum of $16.76 million.
The tongue-in-cheek funeral was hosted by Ramp, an expense management platform that helps companies “automate inefficient spending,” said Amber Joy Layne, a creative producer for the business.
Jarell Mique, a co-producer and field producer for the event, said he was hired to “create a silly moment.” He gathered actors and comedians from D.C., New York City, Utah, Texas and North Carolina.
One by one, they gave remarks at the event, including interpretations of a jealous Mary Todd Lincoln, a pompous George Washington and a frightened Thomas Jefferson, who was scared that the nickel with his face on it might be the next to get axed.
An Ramp employee who said he is Abraham Lincoln’s second cousin, six times removed, offered words of comfort to the grieving crowd.
During her speech, the supposed Mary Todd Lincoln asked the audience a question.
“Find a penny, pick it up and all day you’ll have good luck. Who here has said this phrase before?” she asked. Many raised their hands.
“The penny poured out all its good luck for us and saved none for itself. If only the penny could have picked up another penny for good luck. A penny for a penny.”
Then Abraham Lincoln himself — or the cosplayer and impersonator Alan Edwards, who goes by the handle @honestbabelincoln online — stepped up to the podium.
“Abe,” the crowd chanted.
“You all are pretty as a penny,” he responded.
Despite the sniffles in the crowd, the coin is unlikely to disappear anytime soon. About 300 billion pennies remain in circulation, the Treasury estimates. (Though many of them are likely stuck in couch cushions, piggy banks and car cupholders.)
It would take an act of Congress to officially end the coin’s use as American tender, but the U.S. could follow in Canada’s footsteps. The country stopped making its pennies in 2012 and pulled most of them from circulation in 2013. However, Canadians can still use the coins if they happen to find some stashed away.
Now that U.S. pennies are no longer being made, retailers are expected to round prices to the closest five-cent mark, but experts say consumers are just as likely to gain a few cents at checkout as they are to lose them.
The funeral also featured a guest book, a glass bowl with water where attendees could throw in pennies to make a wish, and a penny press branded to mark the occasion.
At one point, an announcer wanted to know who had the oldest penny. The winner, he said, would get a $75 gift card from Ramp.
Two men held up their coins, both from 1904 and five years before Lincoln’s face was added to the coin, making it the first to feature a real person.
The winner was decided with a coin toss.
Anna Kate Spotts, a 29-year-old speech pathologist, traveled from Baltimore to pay her respects.
“I think it’s very special to be able to take a moment of my life to celebrate, you know, something that has lasted through generations,” said Spotts, a black lace veil covering her face.
Her grandmother’s gold broach held together a black shawl covered in velvet flowers. The copper-tinted gem in the center of the broach, she said, “reminds me of a penny.”
Caroline Warren, 26, stood on the lower steps of the memorial, holding a large cardboard penny with a hole in the middle for her face. She’s been collecting pennies since childhood, and her mother keeps a five-gallon jar full of them at home, she said.
She’s devastated that the penny is no longer being minted.
“I don’t know how I’ll ever get over it,” Warren said.
At the end of his speech, Edwards stood before the memorial named after his look-alike and sighed.
“So farewell to the poor penny,” he said, telling the coin that he wished it could throw itself “in a wishing well and ask for a longer life.”
As guests left, they bid their good byes and tossed pennies into the casket.
The post A funeral for the penny draws Lincoln impersonators and Victorian garb appeared first on Washington Post.
