Prepping Pennies

One of our favorite things to do at Disney World is press pennies.  If you aren't familiar with this practice, there are machines all over WDW where you can put in a penny and two quarters, and the machine squishes the penny flat and imprints a design on it.  But wait, you say, isn't it illegal to mutilate money?  Sort of.  It is illegal to mutilate money with the intent to use it fraudulently.  Since there is no way someone would be able to spend a pressed penny, it's totally fine.

So for a measly 51 cents you can get a great souvenir! And it's fun to hunt for the machines and select a design (most machines have 3 to chose from).  But if you are thinking you would like to spend some time making pressed pennies on your next Disney vacation, there are a few things you can do ahead of time to make it an even better experience.

Grand Floridian, 2016

1. Not All Pennies Are Created Equal.

​Have you seen a penny lately?  They feel really light and have that weird shield on the back.  Yeah, you DO NOT want to press those.  They are made of zinc and they just don't squish well.  So prior to your trip, go through all your jars of change and look for pennies made BEFORE 1982.  That's when they stopped making pennies out of copper. The dark color of copper pennies and the heavier metal make much better souvenirs.

2. Shine 'Em Up!

Older pennies will most likely be tarnished, turning brown or even green.  You want to get your pennies as clean as possible.  The best way to do this is soak them in ketchup and then scrub them.  Seriously, the salt and acid in the ketchup will have your old pennies looking as good as new, ready for squishing.

I made this into a fine motor activity by giving them a knife and asking them to spread the ketchup.

My little perfectionist, hard at work.

See how shiny they are?

3. How Much Does a Penny Cost?

Each penny you want to send through the machine will cost you $0.51.  I made the kids each a penny tube using a mini M&M's tube.  Pre-trip, we load the tubes with 2 quarters for each of our clean pennies.  That way, as we go through the parks if we see a machine we just grab the tubes and get squishing!  No hunting for exact change.  Plus we put the flattened pennies into the tube so we don't lose them.  

I can't remember where I got the images, but they are just taped on.

They each have 14 pennies ready to squish.

4. I Went to Disney World and All I Got Were These Worthless Pennies

Once you get home with your pennies, what do you do with them?  There are tons of ideas over on Pinterest.  People make them into jewelry, frame them, put them into custom made books.  I made ours into a shadowbox with a park map as the background.  It's fun to add our new pennies after we visit the world!

TaDa! The shadowbox came from Hobby Lobby and took me 5 minutes to make. It has a slit in the top so we can easily add more pennies.

Alright!  Are you excited to get to Disney and make some souvenir pennies?