Transform your old pennies into unique art via Penny Portrait: NC Made
APEX, N.C. (WTVD) -- The U.S. Mint officially made its final order of penny blanks last month, and it will stop making pennies in 2026. For one Apex man, this could impact his business.
Sometimes considered useless, Maury McCoy saw the value of the coin.
"Pennies are both dark and light but they're also shiny and matte. So, some of them reflect different than others," he said. "It's actually a totally different effect than it is when you look at a picture of it on the website. It's actually a bit more stunning."
Nearly 18 years ago, McCoy launched Apex-based Penny Portrait, which sells kits to help you craft a portrait of Abe Lincoln -- using your own pennies.
"It's essentially color by numbers, but with pennies," McCoy said.
According to the website, you need a total of 846 pennies -- 349 'shiny new pennies', 112 'lightly used pennies', 97 'well used pennies' and 288 'old as dirt pennies.' It will take about five hours to complete the 18 x 24 portrait.
"It really is as simple as you take some glue, you take a penny, you put some glue on the penny and you stick it on," McCoy said.
Others started to see the value of this simple DIY project too. It's for sale in museum stores, the U.S. Mint and presidential libraries, McCoy added.
Since 2007, he's sold 9,000 'Penny Portraits.'
"Everyone's got jars of pennies lying around," he said. "At the end of the day, they'll have something they're really proud of that they can hang on the wall forever, and it is a really cool looking piece of art."
