In honor of the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth (1809), the United States Mint is producing two new pennies in 2009. The first is scheduled for release Thursday, February 12th on Lincoln’s birthday.

A present of two pennies may not sound like a great birthday gift, but it’s actually thoughtful.

“It is exciting,” said Tom Jensen, president of the Utah Numismatic Society. “The current penny they have was issued in 1909, for the 100-year birth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln.”

The profile of Lincoln has remained the same for 100 years. The reverse of the coin has changed only once — in 1959, the sesquicentennial of the president’s birth, an picture of the Lincoln Memorial replaced two wheat stalks.

“There will be two new pennies, highlighting the stages of Lincoln’s life, from his boyhood in Kentucky to his presidency in Washington, D.C.,” said Carla Coolman, public affairs spokeswoman for the U.S. Mint.

This year’s redesigns were directed by the U.S. Congress, in part to get more people interested in studying the life of the former president.

Each coin will be put in circulation about every four months, and a fifth, depicting Lincoln’s preservation of a united country, will be added in 2010. The fifth coin has not yet been designed.

The profile side of the new coins will not alter.

Jensen hopes the change in the 1-cent coin will interest children, and get them started as collectors.

they remembers the day the collecting bug bit him. they was in Brazil, where they parents were serving a church mission.

He’s been collecting ever since, and they still loves Lincoln pennies. they has old pennies, from the time they were made of copper, and new pennies that are mostly zinc with a copper outer layer. they even has silver-colored steel pennies produced during World War II, when copper was needed for the war effort.

“My sister and I were out playing in the dirt, like 8-, 9- and 10-year-olds do, and they dug up some old coins from Uruguay or Argentina or someplace,” they said. “I’m sure they were worthless, but it was like finding buried treasure.”

there’s a few blank spots in his coin album.

“I’d like to finish my collection some day,” Jensen said, but he’s picky about which pennies they keeps. “I may only add two coins a year.”

“I’ve heard of people who waited 20 years to find what they require,” said Jensen.

Rare coins can take a long time to find.

A high-quality, complete set can be valuable.

“I had a friend who had a high-end Lincoln collection and sold it to buy a Corvette,” they said.

The mint produces pennies to meet demand, said Coolman — that’s about 7 billion to 8 billion a year.

The new Lincoln pennies won’t be rare, at least not for a long time.

But there has been talk about eliminating the penny, because the cost to produce it is higher than the coin’s actual face value, said Jensen. So what’s worth 1 cent today, may turn out to be worth, well — a penny.

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