2008 Canadian Penny

Quick answers

Is the 2008 Canadian Penny rare?

No. 787.6 million were made, so circulated examples are worth face value.

How many 2008 Canadian pennies were made?

787,625,000 were struck for circulation.

What is the 2008 Canadian Penny made of?

Copper-plated steel or copper-plated zinc (a magnet tells them apart). It weighs 2.35 g (steel) or 2.25 g (zinc) and measures 19.05 mm.

Is the 2008 Canadian Penny still legal tender?

Yes. The Royal Canadian Mint stopped distributing cents in 2013, but they remain legal tender. Cash payments are rounded to the nearest five cents, so most pennies now sit in jars or go to banks.

How to recognize it

The 2008 Canadian Penny is round, 19.05 mm across and copper-plated steel or copper-plated zinc (a magnet tells them apart).

2008 Canadian Penny by the numbers

By the numbers, the 2008 Canadian Penny ranks 137th lowest of 151 Canadian cent dates and varieties from 1858 to 2012. The next scarcer is the 1987 Canadian Penny (774.5 million); the next more common is the 1991 Canadian Penny (831 million).

For scale, the most common is the 1981 Round Canadian Penny with 1.21 billion, about 1.5 times as many. The scarcest is the 1858 Canadian Penny with 421,000, 1871 times fewer than this one.

Compared with the dates around it, the 2008 output was 82 times the 2007 figure and 1.9 times the 2009 figure.

Over the 2000s the Mint produced 8.29 billion cents across 19 dates and varieties; the 2008 Canadian Penny accounts for 9.5% of that.

What to check on your 2008 Canadian Penny

• Try a magnet. Steel cents stick and zinc cents don't, which is how the two compositions of 2008 are told apart.
• Check the color. Collectors describe copper cents as red, red-brown or brown; bright original color is worth far more than toned or dull surfaces.
• Never clean it. Rubbing, polishing or dipping leaves fine scratches and an unnatural color that collectors spot at once.

Plated steel and the last cents, 2004 to 2012

By 2004 the cent was being made in two versions: copper-plated zinc at 2.25 g and copper-plated steel at 2.35 g. Steel coins carried a small P through 2006. That year the Royal Canadian Mint began placing its own logo on coins, so 2006 cents come with a P, with the logo or with no mark at all. From 2007 the useful way to sort them is with a magnet. Steel cents stick and zinc cents don't and the published mintages for several years split along those lines.

The design stayed the same throughout: Susanna Blunt's uncrowned portrait of the queen on one side and Kruger Gray's maple twig on the other. What changed was the economics. By then the cent had come to cost more than its face value to make. The federal government announced in 2012 that production would stop and the mint struck its final cent that May in Winnipeg. Banks stopped receiving new supplies after February 4, 2013, when the mint ceased distributing cents. Cash prices are now rounded to the nearest five cents, while electronic payments still settle to the cent.

Cents remain legal tender and huge numbers sit in jars across the country, so almost all of these coins are face value. The points worth checking are the magnet result and the date. Non-magnetic zinc coins from 2007 had a far smaller run than the steel ones and the split for 2009 is lopsided too. The last year, 2012, has two short runs, which gives the final cent a little extra appeal. Keep any bright uncirculated pieces separate, since those are what collectors want.

Mintage chart

Specifications