As I’ve said these penny squashing machines aren’t unique to the USA, and the collection includes pennies from seven other countries.
The above were all collected during our German trip back in 2015. They came from at least four cities, so we must have found quite a few machines during our trip. I don’t remember pressing most of the above; perhaps Bernard made them himself?
A cursory inspection shows these to look more or less identical to the US-pressed coins, but these aren’t actually pressed pennies. Instead the machines in Germany (and most foreign countries) use blanks the same size and material (I think) as US pennies so they look the same when made. You simply feed coins in to pay, and the machine drops the blank into the die itself.
The above all came from England, and again were obtained in various cities. These are a bit different from the German ones since they use real coins: specifically British pennies!
I neglected to mention until now, but sometimes the machines press both sides of the coin. In the examples I have, the reverse is always the name of the attraction or shop in which the penny was pressed. The various pennies from The London Eye I own have pictorial fronts with no logo, but as you can see they put that on the back. These are perhaps the most detailed backs on any of the pennies in the collection.
Some of these Irish pennies are hilariously low quality: as if the machine was broken and not applying enough pressure. I’ve only got six but they’re all from different locations which intrigued me since I wonder what the other designs in the machines must have been since I pressed only one?
That’s the sixth Irish one (not in the previous pick) and looking at the reverse it seems this is also a real coin, specifically a 5 euro cent coin. We saw puffins when we visited Ireland, but our puffin experience in Scotland were much better.
Speaking of Scotland, these four were obtained there. Once again these are British pennies, and once again they all came from different locations which leaves me wondering why I pressed only one at each machine.
Urquhart Castle stands on the shores of Loch Ness, and we visited back on June 9, 2018 which is when I must have pressed this penny. Pressed pennies are often blurry or imperfect, probably because the die has worn down over the years or is slightly misaligned, but this one from Urquhart is unusually fine and detailed. It’s impressive compared to many I’ve showcased so far, but the best will come tomorrow.
By the way, do you still have the Nessie postcard?
I’ll end today with these three, which are amongst the few in the collection not originally collected by me. Obviously from New Zealand, these seem to have been pressed from blanks and not actual coins. To repeat my previous statement, we’ll see more like this tomorrow…
Yes I pressed the ones in Germany. This would have been back when I would always try to press at least one penny if I saw a penny squashing machine.
The ones from New Zealand were definitely pressing blanks since there’s no one cent coin. And most of the machines where automatic, no crank turning needed. I do prefer the mechanical machines though.