The penny, the evolved pennie, was introduced in England by King Offa, the king of Mercia using a model of a coin that was struck by Pepin the Short. His penny weighed 22 1/2 grains, or 240 pennies weighing one saxton pound. Hence the name pennyweight. Henry the III in 1257 minted a penny that was made of gold with the value being 20 silver pence. The penny, with only a few exceptions, was the only coin issued in England until 1343 when Edward the III issued the Gold Florin.The penny was later changed, made smaller, and made from copper and bronze. The penny that the U.S. now uses as its standard one cent piece is made of a 97.5% zinc core, and a 2.5% copper plating.

The modern penny, or one cent, that has been adopted and become the standard for the United States has gone through a few changes of it's own. When Lincoln was placed on the obverse of the penny in 1909, the reverse was the famous "wheat penny" design. In 1959 the reverse was changes to the Lincoln Memorial and stayed that way until 2008. In 2009 the reverse took on four new designs, each to commemorate a point in the life of Abraham Lincoln. They are "Birth and early childhood in Kentucky", "Formative years in Indiana", "Professional life in Illinois", and finally "Presidency in DC".The newest change took place in 2010, in which all these have been replaced by a picture of the "Union Shield".