Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/02/02/penny-presses-find-squashed-penny-machines-near-you.html
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I’ve always used http://www.pennycollector.com/
Great site, frequent crowd-sourced updates for whether any given machine is still there or broke.
Sadly, many of these machines aren’t replaced once the dies wear out, since so few people carry change anymore.
Yes, they have the machines that use their own penny stash. I don’t use them because,
- The pennies are always modern (copper-plated zinc), which don’t press as well, and corrode much faster, unlike solid copper (1982 and earlier).
- It’s just more fun turning the crank yourself!
This is a serious hobby: once a machine is decommissioned, that’s it. They’re all limited edition.
ETA: Last coin show I was at, someone was exhibiting their collection of pressed pennies that all featured an image of a cat,
Looks like this exhibit focused on specimens procured from World’s Fairs. Hopefully the image didn’t get compressed to badly:
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I love those machines! My problem is finding pennies old enough to be copper.
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per usual, Paul F Tompkins covered this subject the best
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Some people will pay good money to have their pennies smashed.
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I see they have marked the machine at the Las Vegas Natural History Museum… I remember that one. Of course, it costs like a dollar or so to run the penny through.
That spot reminds me of the time I almost got a ticket/arrested for being a single childless adult in the park behind the museum. I misunderstood the warning sign and it’s use of the word 'Predator" (hint: they weren’t talking about mountain lions and eagles).
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The smaller “new” English coin is also called a penny.
Don’t go putting them through squashed penny machines though, they have had a steel core for about 30 years and that’s probably bad for the machines.
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“Actually, she’s serving sparkling wine. It’s only champagne if it comes from the Champagne region of France.”
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that’s a much better site, apparently, for it lists the ones in Reno that i’ve seen. I was curious to see of the one at Burning Man was on the list, but there’s no Black Rock City listing. I’m actually not sure it’s still out there, but there was one for several years in a row, anyway.
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My son used one about a year ago and I swear it had pre-squashed pennies in it. I remember the pennies being warm from the squashing when they came out but the one he got was cold.
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That’s inflation for you.
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I just bought tickets to see Godspeed you! Black emperor and I haven’t thought about whether my squashed penny from their first album is acceptable or not because I just thought it was a cool thing like we did with train lines when I wa a kid.
Is it? We’re Canadian pennies okay for the squashed penny community?
Good question! Canada stopped making pennies years ago. I have many that I don’t know what, exactly, to do with. I live 40-ish miles from Canada, so their coins turn up in my change far more than I would like.
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My vague recollection is squashed penny machines in Canada used a pre-loaded American penny so as not to deface the Queen. If I’m wrong about this memory, so be it.
Do people still put them on train tracks?
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Ken Jennings has that same conspiracy theory. All the ones I have ever used definitely freshly squash the penny (well, 5 euro cent). You can feel it in the action of the crank and since euro cents have country specific images on the back you can double-check the faint traces on the squashed one.
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When I was in high school, I was able to get a penny pressed by a subway car. There was a subway worker who put the penny on the tracks in just the right location that the train would run over it and not fling it too far away. There was no picture of a cat on it. It was just a flattened, misshapen penny. I thought it was neat.
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