A shorter post today, wrapping up the rest of the American pennies. We’ll start with these from Disney and Universal Studios:
These were obtained at Disney and Universal parks and I think one of these may be the oldest pressed penny I own. Specifically, this one:
If my memory is correct, the above was pressed when we first went to Disney (in Florida) in 1996, which I just learned was only two years after they first added penny machines to the park. In the parks the pennies cost $1 (as opposed to $0.50 almost everywhere else) and I’ve read that today there are dozens of machines across all the Florida parks, with about 240 unique pennies available. If you’re a diehard penny collector, you’ll have a great time hunting them down at Disney!
It seems Disney pennies are particularly popular with collectors, and in the 30 years since they added the machines there have been an astonishing 2500+ different pennies! Since Disney owns so many licenses now, this includes such examples as Star Wars, Marvel and even Tron pennies (none of which I own):
It’s also worth nothing that Disney parks in other countries have pressed ‘pennies’ as well, but I’ll get back that in a few days…
As for the Universal coins, I’ll spotlight this one:
Shortly after we went to Universal the ET ride was closed. We knew it was on its last legs and rode it several times, enjoying it quite a bit, so this penny – which would no longer be available – is somewhat nostalgic.
Let’s move on now, to animals:
Zoos are common locations for penny machines, and the above are some examples of coins pressed at zoos or animal parks. Many of these don’t even have the name of the zoo on the penny and I like this. Australia never had pressed coins when I was a kid, but I imagine if they did I would have preferred the animal ones over all others…
Except maybe for the dinosaur ones! 🙂