Lincoln Bicentennial Cents 2009

About This Series

Four rotating reverse designs transformed the familiar Lincoln cent into a biographical narrative celebrating Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday in 2009, each design representing a stage of the sixteenth president's life. The Birth and Early Childhood reverse depicts the Kentucky log cabin; Formative Years shows young Lincoln reading on a log in Indiana; Professional Life features the Illinois State Capitol; and Presidency portrays the half-finished U.S. Capitol dome, symbolizing a nation under construction during the Civil War. In a special tribute, all 2009 cents were struck in the original 1909 composition — 95% copper and 5% tin/zinc — rather than the copper-plated zinc standard used since 1982. This compositional return gave the 2009 issues a distinctly warmer, reddish tone that collectors recognized. Struck at Philadelphia and Denver for circulation, with San Francisco producing proofs, the program generated eight collectible business strike varieties plus proof versions. The Bicentennial program demonstrated that circulating coinage could tell a coherent narrative story across sequential designs — a concept that influenced subsequent multi-design programs and reinforced Lincoln's unique status as the most honored individual in American coinage history.