Collectible elongated coins
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When I was still in elementary school, I remember a day when a passenger train was coming into town. There hadn’t been a passenger train in town for a long time, so this was a big event.
Prior to the train’s arrival I put a penny on the railroad tracks. The train arrived, and the wheels of the train ran over the penny. After the train had come in, I retrieved it, and it was an oval shape and otherwise unrecognizable as a penny.
In other places (museums, amusement parks, turnpike rest stops, etc.) for fifty-one cents (two quarters plus the penny) you can change your change into a small oval-shaped medallion with a picture of something on it by turning a crank that works a press to flatten and imprint the penny.
In my travels, I ran across Penny Squishing, a blog that records an elongated coin collector’s activities. This is a sub-area of collecting exonumia, which consists of tokens and other objects that are used in place of money. She has elongated coins with baseball players, Einstein, water fowl, and lots of others. It has fairly broad interest, as there are currently a couple thousand auctions for elongated coins on eBay.
Neat stuff!
2 Responses to “Collectible elongated coins”
By pennysquisher on Jun 8, 2006 | Reply
Hey! That’s my blog you’re talking about. Cool! (I’m a she not a he, by the way).
By mbhunter on Jun 8, 2006 | Reply
Fixed. Thanks for stopping by!