The 2009 Lincoln Birthplace Cent marked the first major design change in the cent coin (also known as a penny) from the United States Mint in fifty years. It was one of four special cents struck by the US Mint in 2009 to represent four different stages in the life of the person honored by the coins, 16th President of the United States Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln has been on the cents since 1909 when the US Mint released the Lincoln Wheat Cents in honor of the centennial of his birth. The designs found on those strikes were the work of artist Victor David Brenner and included an obverse portrait of Lincoln and a reverse design of two wheat heads.

Wheat Cents were struck for fifty years before the reverse design was changed to an image of the Lincoln Memorial (found in Washington D.C.) in 1959 to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of the sixteenth US President. The obverse still included Brenner’s Lincoln portrait.

Those Lincoln Memorial Cents would remain themselves for fifty years before Congress ordered a change to the strikes in Title III of Public Law 109-145. This change would occur in 2009 to mark the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth and would feature four different reverse designs depicting the life of the sixteenth President with the obverse still to use the original Victor David Brenner portrait of Lincoln.

This strike is the first of the four 2009 cents and shows an image emblematic of the birth of Lincoln on its reverse. This image includes a log cabin designed by Richard Masters and sculpted by Jim Licaretz reminiscent of the place where Lincoln was born near Hodgenville, Kentucky.

The 2009 Lincoln Birthplace Cents (also sometimes referred to as the Birth and Early Childhood Cents) were officially released on February 12, 2009 at a ceremony held near Hodgenville. That release would be followed later in the year by three more honoring later stages in the life of Lincoln including the Formative Years Cent, the Professional Life Cent and the Presidency Cent.