WHAT happens if a penny is worth more than 1 cent?

That is an issue the United States Mint could soon face if the price of metals keeps rising. Already it costs the mint well more than a cent to make a penny.

This week the cost of the metals in a penny rose above 0.8 cents, more than twice the value of last fall. Because the government spends at least another six-tenths of a cent -- above and beyond the cost of the metal -- to make each penny, it will lose nearly half a cent on each new one it mints.

The real problem could come if metals prices rise so high that it would be economical to melt down pennies for the metals they contain.

Appearances aside, pennies no longer contain much copper. In the middle of 1982, after copper prices rose to record levels, the mint starting making pennies that consist mostly of zinc, with just a thin copper coating.