2009 Birthplace/Frontier, Zinc

The 2009 Lincoln Birthplace/Frontier cent in standard zinc composition is the coin most Americans encountered in their pocket change during the bicentennial year. Authorized by the Abraham Lincoln Commemorative Coin Act of 2006, the coin's reverse depicts a humble log cabin in rural Kentucky, representing the earliest chapter of Lincoln's life. Richard Masters designed the image, and Jim Licaretz sculpted it for production. Lincoln was born in a single-room cabin near Hodgenville, Kentucky, on February 12, 1809, to Thomas and Nancy Lincoln. The family lived in frontier conditions with few material comforts.

The Philadelphia Mint struck these cents without a mintmark, following a tradition dating to the facility's founding in 1792. The 2009 bicentennial program replaced the Lincoln Memorial reverse that had appeared on the cent since 1959, itself introduced for Lincoln's 150th birthday. Four different reverse designs circulated simultaneously in 2009, each representing a stage of Lincoln's life, and the Birthplace/Frontier design came first in the sequence. The combined mintage across all four Philadelphia designs reached approximately 284.4 million pieces. The coin weighs 2.5 grams and is made of copper-plated zinc, the standard cent composition adopted in 1982 when rising copper prices made solid bronze cents impractical.