Pennies From Heaven...

Blogging, and the sharing of your thoughts, obsessions, and quirky hobbies with an audience of one's friends, is occasionally accompanied by unforeseen consequences. For instance, after posting on my love of pressed pennies a couple months ago, these tiny scraps of tortured metal have provided a whole new level of connection between me and my friends. You see, people have started bringing me elongated pennies that they have made on their travels, or just around town when they saw a machine and thought of me. I didn't write my post with the intention of soliciting gifts, but rather, to share something eccentric about myself. Still, the additions to my collection have certainly been a unexpected perk, and it makes me happy to know that I've spread the joy of pressing pennies to my extended circle of friends.

After returning from a recent trip to visit her family in Florida, my friend Natasha informed me that she had brought be a little something from her travels. I certainly hadn't expected any sort of souvenir, but when she produced a Ziploc baggie of pressed pennies from her backpack, I was beyond delighted. As it turned out, she and her family made a game of who could spot the penny presses at Disney World, and taking turns making the pennies. It wasn't until the end of the day that a park employee informed them that they could have obtained a penny machine map at the information desk, but I think that would have spoiled their fun. Thanks for thinking of me during your vacation, Natasha!

Although Natasha brought me a small bounty consisting of fourteen pennies, I thought I would just share a representative sample.

Actually, my interest in pressed pennies has even netted me a new friend, Brandon, who is also an elongated coin enthusiast, although he is a far more serious collector than I am. I knew him tangentially, as he also works at the museum, but when one of our coworkers pointed out our mutual interest after reading my blog, we got to know each other better. Now Brandon brings me copies of the pennies he presses on his weekend jaunts in search of all the machines in the Chicagoland area. Even though we are on totally different levels, it's still great to have someone with whom to share my hobby, and expand my collection at the same time. Thanks Brandon!

My Lucky Penny...

As if there hasn't been enough sad news at work lately, today I learned about a particularly tragic development afflicting the Chicago History Museum next week: we are going to lose our souvenir penny press. Evidently, the company that supplies the press engages in a 50/50 profit-sharing scheme with the museum, and with our attendance waning in the down economy, it is no longer profitable to have a machine located here. It just so happens, that I love pressed pennies (or elongated pennies, which is the technical term).

A few of the pressed pennies I've made around town, including the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, which also lost its penny press last year, due to poor attendance figures.

As I have gotten older, kitschy souvenirs like stuffed animals, t-shirts, and assorted bric-a-brac appeal to me less and less. They do nothing but take up space and collect dust. Not to mention that they're usually overpriced to begin with. Pressed pennies, however, are a different story. They are small, evocative of a specific location, and at 51 cents, the price is right. I get a special thrill whenever I find a pressed penny machine somewhere I'm visiting. I'm not a sufficiently hardcore enough collector to get every available design wherever I find a press; instead, I usually opt only for the designs that appeal specifically to me. I try to avoid dies that have only text, or that have generic images that aren't specifically related to the place they came from.

Some of my elongated pennies from around the U.S.

I had been putting off getting any elongated pennies here at the History Museum, because I felt a little sheepish getting a souvenir item from my place of employment, particularly because the press is located in a very public hallway. But today, upon learning that my window was quickly closing, I got change from a five dollar bill and got cranking. Even though I really only liked one of the four available designs, I got all of them anyway, since I'd never have another chance if I changed my mind. It was approximately as embarrassing as I feared it would be, especially when one of the security guards gave me a hard time about all the noise I was making, but I would not be deterred.

My newly minted CHM pennies. The hot dog design (top) is my favorite by far.

In my opinion, the loss of our penny press is especially sad, given the historical connection between Chicago and elongated pennies. You see, the first penny press machines were created for the Chicago Columbian Exposition in 1893. It almost seems like it should be our duty to carry on the same tradition. Plus, the existence of Chicago History Museum-branded pennies gives us some legitimacy as a tourist destination. Even though we are much smaller, it put us into the same league as museum powerhouses like the Field Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry. Now we belong to the same ignominious category as the perennially struggling Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. It's yet another small indignity served up by the Great Recession in my fair city. I wonder how many more there will be before the economy recovers...