2009 Formative Years, Copper

The 2009 Formative Years copper cent captures a defining image from Lincoln's youth: a young Abraham Lincoln sitting on a log, reading a book. Charles Vickers designed the reverse, which was sculpted by Jim Licaretz. The scene represents the years Lincoln spent in Indiana, from age seven to twenty-one, where he grew from a frontier child into an ambitious young man. The Lincoln family moved from Kentucky to Indiana in 1816, partly because Thomas Lincoln faced legal disputes over land titles and partly because Indiana was a free territory where slavery was prohibited.

Lincoln's formal education amounted to less than a year of schooling, scattered across several terms with itinerant teachers. He became largely self-taught, borrowing books from neighbors and reading by firelight. His appetite for learning set him apart from most frontier families of the era. The image on this coin alludes to that determination. The 95% copper composition echoes the metal used in Lincoln cents for most of the denomination's history. The satin finish surface gives the coin a matte texture distinct from the mirror-like proof finish and the standard circulation strike. Approximately 2.99 million satin finish copper cents were produced for the entire four-design bicentennial program, distributed through U.S. Mint collector sets.