As the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth is approaching, the Congress deemed it appropriate to order a redesign for the penny from the U.S. Mint. The front side of the penny will remain unaltered, and the back side is the one that will suffer a transformation.

It is a known fact that a penny, which values one cent, costs more than a cent to be made, seeing that it consists of copper-plated zinc. As an example, 5 billion pennies, which are worth $50 million dollars, have a production cost of $70 million.

The decision to alter the penny - for the first time in 50 years - raised a lot of questions, giving the current state of the U.S. economy. Under these circumstances, it’s at least peculiar why 59% of the American population were in favor of keeping the penny, according to a 2004 survey. It is more bewildering that the number of penny supporters rose to a staggering 66% in 2007.

The actual designing of the new-fangled penny falls into the hands of Charles Vickers, an engraver and sculptor with the U.S. Mint, among others. One of the designs he submitted is of Abraham Lincoln reading a book, while taking a break from splitting logs.

Philly-based Joseph Menna, another engraver/sculptor, used his stylus to “carve” a very intricate design for the coin.

The designs intend to show different stages in Lincoln’s life and they work as a proper tribute to one of the States’ greatest leader, Abraham Lincoln, not to mention they will be hunted down by every numismatic enthusiast. The problem of the production cost, however, remains unresolved.