Westport Boy Nears Goal of Collecting 100 Years of Pennies

Find a penny, pick it up, all day long you'll have good luck.

I remember saying that phrase a lot as a kid, excited to find spare change on the ground – or if you were really lucky, a heads-up penny.

However, production of the penny has stopped in the year 2025, making that small one-cent coin a bit more valuable, at least sentimentally, as we hang on to a tiny piece of history.

100 Years of Pennies

Westport mom Tina Flores has always valued coins. From a young age, her grandmother would share her coin collection with Flores, piquing an interest she would soon pass on to her own children. Namely, her eight-year-old son Andre.

"I showed him my own small coin collection that my grandmother passed down to me," Flores said. "He then sorted all his pennies by year, and put into little tiny jewelry-sized plastic baggies by year, and labeled them."

Flores' brother informed her that the plastic bags weren't best for long term storage, so she came up with an alternative.

"I’ll put them together in a binder for him for Christmas, along with the notes for each year of something significant in the family or history," Flores said.

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The sorting is an integral part of the collection. He's not going for quantity.

"I then helped him make a spreadsheet, so he started to learn about that, and we thought of how cool it would be to have 100 years worth of them, especially since the penny retired this year," Flores said.

That's right, Andre is hoping to collect 100 pennies (technically 101) from the years 1925-2025.

In an attempt to find them all, Flores posted the remaining years needed on Facebook and the community rallied.

"I’ve only had to travel as far as Fairhaven," Flores said, sharing her journey to pick up pennies from certain years.

"He doesn’t know that I’m actively trying to get him more," she said. "I’m keeping it a surprise for Christmas." So if you know the Flores family, mum's the word until the special day.

At this point, Andre is only three pennies away from achieving his goal.

A Few Pennies Still Needed

Start searching through your spare change and see if you have pennies from any of the following years:

• 1931
• 1932
• 1933

A Sentimental Collection

This family endeavor is a special one. Not only is Flores making memories with her son, she's taking it one step further to tie their family history into it.

"I was thinking of doing some brief write-up of something significant for each year. So for example, 1925, Great-Grandpa Don was born, 1926, Great-Grandma Sukie was born, etc.," Flores said.

"Then for any year I can’t think of something family-related, I can add something of historical significance of what was happening during that time," she said.

She also plans on asking extended family to recall other significant events that may have taken place. "It’s also special to us because my grandfather, whose house we now own, would have turned 100 this year. Born in 1925," Flores said.

A collection worth about $1.01, but to a young collector and a family on a mission, it's priceless.