The American penny died on Nov. 12 in Philadelphia. It was 232.

The cause was irrelevance and expensiveness, the U.S. Treasury Department said. Nothing could be bought anymore with a penny — not even penny candy, which quietly disappeared years ago — and minting one had come to cost more than 3 cents. Financial absurdity finally overtook cultural nostalgia.

The last pennies rolled off the line at the Philadelphia Mint as Treasury officials looked on. No final words were recorded. Pennies were never much for speeches.

Yet they mattered more than economics ever admitted. They were the first coin many of us held, proof that money existed and that we had a tiny piece of it. They rattled in couch cushions, filled mason jars and weighed down pockets.

They bought gum, paid for parking meters

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