Right ok, I still have them yet. Canadian pennies would stick to a magnet so I guess the mint must have been using some kind of cheap recycled steel coated with copper
All currency is on the way out. The world is moving toward a completely cashless society. It's not about finding a better way. It's more about a one world system.
A quarter now has as much value as a copper penny used to have. The zinc penny with copper coating costs almost twice as much as the melt value of its metals. The only reason the country still makes pennies is that the zinc miners lobbied for it to protect the jobs in the industry.