What to see more details on all the work that went into creating this pressed penny, check out our Youtube Video here.

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Way back on March 18th, 2014 I created this blog and made my first post about a visit to the Great Wolf Lodge in the Pennsylvania Pocono Mountains. I had recently gotten back into the hobby of collecting elongated coins shortly before that and when searching online for stories or information on pressed pennies there really wasn’t much out there. I had found the TEC club and joins, but with newsletters released quarterly that left quite a bit of time in-between issues where I was looking for more stories. So I thought I would go ahead and start documenting my trips in case anyone out there was in a similar situation. When I first was trying to design the blog I didn’t have money to pay an artist or graphic designer so instead I took it upon myself to try and create it from scratch.

I sat at my office desk in the basement of our house trying to come up with an idea and thought about just laying some elongated coins on the desk. Disney is always very popular so I thought by using some Disney coins it would help grab readers attention, plus I figured why not include some TEC coins in case any club members stopped by. Then once I took the picture I though it looked pretty good, and added the black box in the middle to try and help make the text stand out a bit. Boom, there was my first banner for the blog and then in August 2017 when I launched our YouTube channel this same banner was used there as well.

It’s done us well for all these years, but earlier this year I had finally decided that it was time to rebrand a bit. I’ve shared hundreds of stories, shown off thousands of coins, chatted with so many of you fellow collectors and just felt we needed to come up with something new. Now I promise our blog and videos will continue to focus on pressed coins, that will absolutely not change. Below I’m going to review with you the entire process of working on a new official logo and a very special custom pressed penny.

First I needed to work on a new logo. I had tried to make something myself a few times but as I mentioned at the beginning that is just not something I’m good at. I’ll save myself the embarrassment of my designs, and instead will go right to the ones that I had hired professionals to create.

To try and do this on a very reasonable budget I thought I would try using the service Fiverr.com. I’ve heard both good and back experience but it seems that’s pretty common place for online services anywhere. After this entire process I can say that everyone I worked with was very professional and I didn’t have any issues. Above was the first logo design I received back, this was after a few revision requests. Initially the design was a circle and in a more silver color. I asked for it to be elongated so it looked more like a pressed coin and changed the color to a gold/bronze color to try and mimic a penny. This was not a bad initial design, but I wanted to see what else other designers could come up with.

The second logo design I received is pictures above. Similar to the first design I asked for a few revisions and this was the final product. I liked the circle and ring portion of the logo as being a bit unique, but then with the standard text below I felt it would be difficult to implement this eventually into a coin design.

Thirds times the charm. I was open to trying more and more until I found something that just grabbed me, but thankfully that happened with the third logo. I liked that it portrayed a pressed coins, also had the familiar dots within the logo that usually we are used to seeing around the board of our pressed pennies. This just immediately jumped out as the one I liked the best. If you follow me on Instagram you may have already seen this as my profile picture. I was so excited to get it that I immediately put on there as my new profile picture. It’s hard to remember all the different places that this logo will need to be updated without our community, but I’ll be working on that over the next few weeks. But before I get to that I was excited to get into the process of creating our own pressed coin design.

I took quite a bit of time chatting with some pressed coin designers, and also chatted with friends in our community that have had their own coins created to try and get some recommendations. That did help narrow my list down quite a bit and then I took more time to review the other designs they each have created to see what grabbed my attention. After all of that I chose to work with Paul Connor at Paul Conner Studios and I’ve included a link to his website in case you would like to see his other work. After a quick email over to Paul with a copy of my brand new logo I basically gave him carte blanche to come up with some ideas. To my surprise Paul got back to me within an hour or so with the above three initial designs. Just like with the new logo, when I saw these options one immediately jumped out at me. But I wanted to get some additional feedback so I showed some friends and family to see what they liked and it was almost unanimous.

I sent Paul an email confirming the design we wanted to proceed with, and placed the order. It took a few weeks for him to get the die created and then the coins pressed.

Waiting for the package of coins to arrive in the mail seemed like forever, but in reality I think it was only a couple of days. When it arrived I dropped what I was doing to tear into the box and see it in all it’s bright shiny glory, and I absolutely love it.

Now for the exciting part. This new logo and special pressed penny is all because of you. Without all your support and kind comments I wouldn’t have been able to do this. I have chatted with so many of you over the years about your own collections and am so happy to be able to share this penny with you my penny pals.

The penny is completely free if you would like one for your very own collection. I’ll just ask that you cover the postage cost to get it back to your home. So all you need to do is send me a Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope to our new P.O. Box address listed below. Once I receive it I’ll put your penny in the envelope and shipped back to you as soon as possible.

DavidsCoinTravels
P.O. Box 135512
Clermont, FL 34713

Then if you want to share pictures on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook of your new penny be sure to tag us so we can share it with everyone. Also, I have had some penny pals ask if they can send me mail and with this new P.O. Box you can absolutely do so. I would love to hear from all of you, and just let me know if it’s okay to share your letters with everyone and I’ll create a special section on our blog where we can see all the letters or postcards that come in. It will be so much fun to see where everyone is from, and maybe include some pictures of your own collections.

I do want to say once again from the bottom of my heart that this is all because of your wonderful support that I’m able to make these improvements to the blog and our community. Hopefully this is the first of many special pressed coin designs we can release. Have a wonderful week and as always Keep on Pressing!

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