President Donald Trump talks of big change in his second term of office. But he's not forgetting small change, either.

Trump said on Feb. 10 via his social media account that the Treasury Department should stop making pennies.

For years, critics of the penny have pointed out that putting a copper-coated zinc disc in your pocket costs the government more than a cent — almost 4 cents today.

Will Trump's order make the penny disappear? There is no sign that the U.S. Mint will stop pressing pennies in Denver and Philadelphia, and Mint officials did not respond to requests for clarification this week.

But the presidential penny pledge is already being felt in a little-known part of the business world that depends on buying pennies wholesale, loading them into machines at fairs or entertainment venues, and luring customers to pay to have the coins stamped with designs — Paw Patrol, for instance, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — as they are stretched between metal rollers.

Groups of collectors and craftsmen have developed around these souvenirs. Without the penny, the whole enterprise faces an uncertain future.

The last pennies?

New copper pennies vanished from circulation in 1982 — 73 years after the first Lincoln penny was minted. They were replaced by coins of mostly zinc thinly coated with copper.

The solid copper old ones were more pliable and easier to stamp, making them hot items for kids at fairs. When pressed and elongated, the older pennies maintain "a ghost image of the printed head of Lincoln," said Brian Peters, general manager of Minnesota-based Penny Press Machine Co.

Jeweler Angelo Rosato worked in the 1960s and '70s hand-printing pennies with images of New Milford, Conn., as well as historical and sentimental scenes. Everything was obsessively cataloged, including more than 4,000 penny photographs.

"We're big fans of the penny. Keep the penny," said Aaron Zablow of Roseland, N.J., who was with two of his sons on a recent day at the American Dream Mall.

"I like the pennies," his son Mason, 9, said.

Critics say the rise of electronic commerce and the billions of pennies in circulation mean the U.S. could stop printing the copper coins tomorrow and see little widespread effect for decades. But some people are watching fearfully to see if Trump's public critique of the penny will affect their businesses.

Alan Fleming, of Scotland, is the owner of Penny Press Factory, one of a number of companies around the world that manufacture machines that flatten and stamp coins.

"A lovely retired gentleman in Boston sold me over 100,000 uncirculated cents a couple of years ago, but he doesn't have any more," Fleming wrote. "I will need to purchase new uncirculated cents within the next 12 months to keep my machines supplied and working."

Regardless of what happens to niche businesses like Fleming's, penny defenders say they're an important tool for lubricating the economy even if they're a money-losing proposition.

Small change

Since the invention of money, humankind has wrangled with the question of small change, how to denominate amounts so small that the metal coin itself is actually worth more.

In 2003, Thomas J. Sargent and another economist wrote The Big Problem of Small Change, billed as "the first credible and analytically sound explanation" of why governments had a hard time maintaining a steady supply of small change because of the high costs of production.

But in a digital world with the line blurring between the real and the virtual, tactile coins have been reassuring.

"What this all tells you about the United States as a country is that it's an incredibly conservative country when it comes to money," said Ute Wartenberg, executive director of the American Numismatic Society.

Pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters are sometimes designed by artists laser-sculpting tiny portraits of leaders and landmarks using special software.

"It's pretty cool because when I tell people what I do, I just say my initials are on the penny," Joseph Menna, the 14th chief engraver of the U.S. Mint, said in the 2019 film "Heads-Up: Will We Stop Making Cents?"

Fleming is hoping some lobbying may help: "Maybe we should take a trip to Washington and ask to speak to President Trump and [Trump adviser] Elon Musk and see if we can cut a deal on buying millions of pennies from them."