Squish the Penny

I'm willing to bet almost everyone has smashed a penny at one time or another. You see a penny press machine at just about every museum and tourist attraction in the US. It's a fun and inexpensive souvenir.



I got my first smashed penny at Pier 39 in San Francisco when I was about 11 years old. It had a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge on it. I had never seen a penny machine before and I thought it was pretty cool that I could crank a lever and squish my penny. I'd put pennies on the railroad tracks before and gotten misshapen, indistinguishable blobs of copper, but not a uniformly squished and imprinted penny. It cost me a quarter to smash my penny. Nowadays it costs a buck or more-still a cheap souvenir! My son has dozens of them. He gets one everywhere he goes that he finds a penny machine.

I suppose a hand cranked penny press machine is a good investment for the souvenir peddlers out there. It's tough to break them and you don't need to stock any inventory-the customer provides their own penny. All there is to do is empty the machine of its profits.