I just got back from a trip to Australia and New Zealand, and this is one of the things that I noticed while I was over there. Neither of those countries seemed to have pennies. If they did, I didn't encounter them while I was there. The lowest denomination I saw in Australia was a 5-cent coin, and the lowest I saw in New Zealand was a 10-cent coin.

I remarked while I was over there at how much sense this made to me and wished that the same would happen in the United States, because I feel like pennies are worthless. I'm glad to see someone experimenting with it in the US.

In New Zealand the smallest coin is a ten cent coin:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coins_of_the_New_Zealand_dollar#Current_coinage