The government killed the penny. On Wednesday, the Philadelphia Mint produced the final five circulating pennies.

Here’s what to know about when penny production stopped, what retailers are doing, which rare pennies could be valuable and how to identify them.

Some McDonald's locations in certain parts of the U.S. have run short of pennies and have begun rounding cash transactions up or down to the nearest five cents when customers don't have exact change, the company told USA Today.

When it was introduced in 1793, a penny could buy a biscuit, a candle or a piece of candy. But now most of them are cast aside to sit in jars or junk drawers, and each one costs nearly 4 cents to