2005 P Canadian Penny
The 2005 P Canadian Penny is a one-cent coin struck for circulation with 30.5 million made. Value band: face value. Here is how to recognize it, what makes one worth more and what to check on yours.
- Year
- 2005
- Circulation mintage
- 30,525,000
- Value band
- Face value
- Composition
- Copper-plated steel (94% steel, 1.5% nickel, 4.5% copper plating)
Original illustration of the coin's shape and metal. Tap to flip. Not a picture of the actual design.
Face value · Small premium · Collector premium · Significant rarity. We use bands because prices change daily.
What is a 2005 P Canadian Penny worth?
With 30.5 million made, the 2005 P Canadian Penny is common. A circulated one is worth face value. The cent is still legal tender even though the Mint stopped issuing it in 2013. Only coins with full original red color, a recognized variety or a genuine error interest collectors.
What would make yours worth more:
- Full original red color
- A recognized variety or a genuine mint error
- Coins from a specimen or proof set
For market prices, look at recent sold results for the same coin in the same condition, not asking prices.
Quick answers
- Is the 2005 P Canadian Penny rare?
- No. 30.5 million were made, so circulated examples are worth face value.
- How many 2005 P Canadian pennies were made?
- 30,525,000 were struck for circulation.
- What is the 2005 P Canadian Penny made of?
- Copper-plated steel (94% steel, 1.5% nickel, 4.5% copper plating). It weighs 2.35 g and measures 19.05 mm.
- Is the 2005 P Canadian Penny still legal tender?
- Yes. The Royal Canadian Mint stopped distributing cents in 2013, but they remain legal tender. Cash payments are rounded to the nearest five cents, so most pennies now sit in jars or go to banks.
The 2005 penny in context
The 2005-P has the lowest mintage of any P marked cent: just 30,525,000 coins, compared with 759,658,000 zinc cents struck the same year. That is a remarkable split, with the zinc version outnumbering the steel one by roughly twenty five to one. The figure stands out sharply against the other P years, which ran from about 114 million in 2002 to about 591 million for the uncrowned 2003 coins.
Why the mint made so few steel cents in 2005 is not something the records explain, but the result is clear enough for collectors. The 2005-P is the scarce date of the plated steel P series and it is the coin people look for when they run a magnet through a jar of mid 2000s cents. It is far from rare in absolute terms, since thirty million is still a large number of coins. Next to the hundreds of millions of zinc cents that year, though, it takes some searching to find. Like every P coin from 2004 on, it carries Susanna Blunt's uncrowned portrait and the maple twig reverse.
How to recognize it
Susanna Blunt's uncrowned portrait of the queen faces right with ELIZABETH II D·G·REGINA and a small P below. The reverse is Kruger Gray's maple twig with CANADA, 1 CENT and 2005. The coin is round, weighs 2.35 g and is copper-plated steel, so it sticks to a magnet. The zinc 2005 cent looks almost identical but has no P and weighs 2.25 g. Use a magnet to sort a batch quickly, then confirm the P on any that stick. A worn P can be faint, so the magnet result is the more reliable first test. Weighing is a backup if your magnet is weak.
2005 P Canadian Penny by the numbers
In mintage terms the 2005 P Canadian Penny ranks 66th lowest of 151 Canadian cent dates and varieties from 1858 to 2012. The next scarcer is the 1948 Canadian Penny (25.8 million); the next more common is the 1947 Canadian Penny (31.1 million).
For scale, the most common is the 1981 Round Canadian Penny with 1.21 billion, about 40 times as many. The scarcest is the 1858 Canadian Penny with 421,000, 73 times fewer than this one.
Compared with the dates around it, the 2005 output was 4.4 times fewer than 2004 and 29 times fewer than 2006. Other 2005 cents: 2005 Canadian Penny (759.7 million).
Over the 2000s the Mint produced 8.29 billion cents across 19 dates and varieties; the 2005 P Canadian Penny accounts for 0.4% of that.
What to check on your 2005 P Canadian Penny
- Try a magnet: a genuine 2005 P Canadian Penny is plated steel and sticks to it.
- Confirm the variety: P mark (plated steel). Use a magnifier and compare with a reference picture before you assume you have the scarcer one.
- Check the color. Collectors describe copper cents as red, red-brown or brown; bright original color is worth far more than toned or dull surfaces.
- Never clean it. Rubbing, polishing or dipping leaves fine scratches and an unnatural color that collectors spot at once.
Worn 2005-P cents are face value, but the low mintage gives them more interest than other steel cents of the period. Uncirculated red coins draw a small premium and collectors building a P cent set treat it as the key date. Because it looks so much like the common zinc coin, sorting with a magnet is the easiest way to find one. Steel cents can rust where the plating is damaged, so look for an even surface with no orange spots. Keep any you find dry and separate, ideally in a small labeled holder so they don't drift back into spending money.
Plated steel and the last cents, 2004 to 2012
By 2004 the cent was being made in two versions: copper-plated zinc at 2.25 g and copper-plated steel at 2.35 g. Steel coins carried a small P through 2006. That year the Royal Canadian Mint began placing its own logo on coins, so 2006 cents come with a P, with the logo or with no mark at all. From 2007 the useful way to sort them is with a magnet. Steel cents stick and zinc cents don't and the published mintages for several years split along those lines.
The design stayed the same throughout: Susanna Blunt's uncrowned portrait of the queen on one side and Kruger Gray's maple twig on the other. What changed was the economics. By then the cent had come to cost more than its face value to make. The federal government announced in 2012 that production would stop and the mint struck its final cent that May in Winnipeg. Banks stopped receiving new supplies after February 4, 2013, when the mint ceased distributing cents. Cash prices are now rounded to the nearest five cents, while electronic payments still settle to the cent.
Cents remain legal tender and huge numbers sit in jars across the country, so almost all of these coins are face value. The points worth checking are the magnet result and the date. Non-magnetic zinc coins from 2007 had a far smaller run than the steel ones and the split for 2009 is lopsided too. The last year, 2012, has two short runs, which gives the final cent a little extra appeal. Keep any bright uncirculated pieces separate, since those are what collectors want.
Mintage chart
Specifications
| Country | Canada |
|---|---|
| Denomination | 1 cent |
| Issuer | Royal Canadian Mint |
| Year | 2005 |
| Circulation mintage | 30,525,000 |
| Composition | Copper-plated steel (94% steel, 1.5% nickel, 4.5% copper plating) |
| Weight | 2.35 g |
| Diameter | 19.05 mm |
| Shape | Round |
| Edge | Plain |
Other 2005 Canadian pennies
| Coin | Circulation mintage | Value band |
|---|---|---|
| 2005 Canadian Penny | 759,658,000 | Face value |
Frequently asked questions
Is the 2005 P Canadian penny rare?
It is the lowest mintage P cent at 30,525,000, compared with over 750 million zinc 2005 cents. Worn coins are face value, but it is the scarce date of the plated steel P series.
How do you find a 2005-P cent?
Run a magnet over a batch of 2005 cents. The P coins are steel and stick, while the far more common zinc coins do not. Then check below the portrait for the small P to confirm.
Mintage figures: Penny (Canadian coin) (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0), compiled from Royal Canadian Mint figures. How we build these pages.