Pressed pennies.
Elongated pennies.
Smush pennies.
They’ve picked up many different names over the years.
Whatever you call them, these little trinkets can be found at tourist destinations all around
the world, and they’re especially prevalent in Walt Disney World.
But where did they come from?
Why did we just start flattening pennies?
As it turns out, the history of elongated pennies is actually a bit muddied.
There’s a generally accepted place and time in which they were considered to come about,
yet there are also accounts of similarly flattened coins existing for decades before.
However since there are no records of those accounts, we’ll go with what we can trace back.
In 1893 everyone was celebrating the Chicago’s World’s Fair.
It was also known at the time as the World’s Columbian Exposition, in honor of the 400th
anniversary of Christopher Columbus landing in America.
They were a year off but I imagine they didn’t want to wait another 400 years.
Fun fact, but one of the construction workers who helped build the complex used at the
World’s Fair that year was a failed orange grower from Florida named Elias Disney.
Over the next ten years he and his wife Flora would have five kids, including
Walt Disney and Roy Disney.
The World’s Fair then, as it was every time, was a year long event in which companies and
countries from around the world came together to proudly show off their latest innovations
and highlight the best of their culture.
It’s where the world was introduced to the first Ferris Wheel, and where entire new audiences
were exposed to a new genre of music called ragtime.
If this all sounds similar in theme to Epcot, that’s no accident.
The Epcot theme park was designed to conceptually be a persistent world’s fair.
As the story goes, one of the technologies on display at the fair was a press machine.
Now presses weren’t exactly brand new at the time, but the use of this one caught people’s
attention.
A jeweler had modified the machine to include an engraving on the press, and in order to
show off the immense strength of the machine he would use it to do something that no person
could do on their own, like flatten a coin.
For the cost of around 5 to 10 cents, along with the coin to be flattened with thousands
of pounds of pressure, guests were able to not only see the machine at work, but at the
end of the display they’d have the flattened coin as a memento.
The engraving was simple and just said “Columbian Exposition 1893”.
As for the coins, the press was adjustable, so the elongating wasn’t limited to just
pennies at that point.
The whole attraction ended up being very popular both for the novelty of seeing it at work,
and for the fairly cheap souvenir guests received as a result.
The pressed coin idea would find itself popping up at fairs and exhibitions all around the
world for the next 72 years.
This was known by collectors as the “oldies” period.
In 1965 the second period began, which was known as the “Modern Elongated” period.
At this point private individuals began to design and create their own pressing machines,
which allowed the memento to expand beyond major events.
However even at that point the process required an attendant to operate the machine.
Six years later in 1971 the first coin-operated penny press machine was
invented, and it would be their growth in popularity in the 1980s when the third and
current era of elongated coins, the “Contemporary Elongated” would begin.
That’s where Disney would come in.
The first every pressed penny machine that was introduced to Disneyland was introduced
in June of 1987, a little over 30 years ago.
The design was simply Mickey Mouse’s face in front of a starburst, and so it was referred
to as the “Mickey Sunburst” and “Mickey Starburst” coin.
The machines didn’t make their way over to Walt Disney World until 1994 but when they
did they began to grow in popularity and new machines were placed all around the parks.
Today there are over 750 pressed coin designs available on Walt Disney World property, and
far more than that available at vacation and recreation destinations all around the world.
There are websites dedicated to tracking as many of them as possible and collectors who
make a mission out of getting as many as possible.
These little flat pennies have withstood the test of time, and over 100 years later
they're as popular as ever.