** Updated 02/09/2023 The countdown has begun for when the 50th Pressed Pennies will be removed and no longer available to guests and collectors. Many of the machines now have these stickers on them confirming they will be leaving soon. So if you haven’t picked yours up yet, time is quickly running out.

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BREAKING NEWS: I have received confirmation from some of our friendly collectors that Disney has released 9 new pressed penny designs celebrating the 50th Anniversary. Here is a link to a separate post about the 50th Anniversary Series 2 pennies.

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We all knew deep down in our hearts that Disney would release some special pressed penny designs to celebrate the 50th Anniversary, but with nothing official I was getting a bit worried. Thankfully Disney didn’t let us know and even though the 50th Celebration doesn’t start for a few more days, they have started releasing the new designs throughout the parks and this will be our official post that you can follow along as I find each one. I will continue to add to this post so everything is all in one place for you to use as your guide. Also quick plug for our Penny Maps, I’ve created a special one just for these 50th Anniversary Designs and you can find it here. So put on your Mickey’s ears and let’s head on over to the parks.

Magic Kingdom

First up we visited the Magic Kingdom and thankfully didn’t have to trek too far into the parks. Once you scan your ticket or magic band at the gate take a look to the left side and you will see the Newsstand. Currently it’s closed, and hopefully will reopen in the near future as this was a great place to pick up a last minute drink or snack before leaving the park. Thankfully the pressed penny machine is located outside the store so it can still be accessed.

The 50th design available at this machine has the Mad Matter which I think is another great penny. It seems like a bit of a strange location for this design, but I think with so many of the newer style touch screen machines they probably have limited places to put these individual designs. Next we up we just needed to head a bit further into the park and onto Main Street USA the pulled a u-turn and headed underneath the Train Station.

This set includes some fun new designs of Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Gus from Cinderella, and Olaf from Frozen. Each design also includes a “50” overtop of each character. With these pennies stately stored away, I headed down towards Cinderella Castle we took a quick detour into the Main Street Emporium.

At a quick glance it appears that the Emporium takes up the entire left side of Main Street as you head towards the castle but it is in fact a few different stores that are all interconnected. The first section closed to the front of the park is the Emporium and has two machines. The first is just inside the doors and is a machine we have visited in the past. In total this machine has 8 designs, but 4 have been kept the same as before and only the 2021 dated designs were removed and replaced with these new 50th designs of Pooh Bear, Tramp, Tinker Bell and Bo Peep.

The second machine is further back in the Emporium just before you enter the Disney Clothiers store. Similar to the first machine 4 of these designs are unchanged but the 2021 dated designs are gone with new 50th pennies available for Dumbo, Lady, Woody and Piglet.

We were done with the Emporium and could have headed back out to main street but there was more more machine in this long interconnected set of shops so I opted to stay in the A/C and cut through Disney Clothiers and into the Hall of Champions store for the next machine. This machine had designs of Disney character playing different sports and 4 of the designs are also the same, but the other 4 were replaced with 50th anniversary pennies of Thumper, Frozone, Pluto and Pinocchio.

I made to sure to visit each and every machine inside all the parks hunting down these 50th designs and I will admit that the machine at the exit to Splash Mountain here the ride photo preview area would have been one of the last I thought would have received a 50th design. But sure enough one was placed here with a design of Timothy Mouse from Dumbo. I’ve mentioned this in the past but you do not need to ride Splash Mountain to access this machine, you can just walk through the gift shop towards the photo preview area to use the machine with no issue. That wraps up all the machines at Magic Kingdom now time to grab a Disney Bus and head to our next park.

Hollywood Studios

Day two of our search took us over to Hollywood Studios. As much as I wanted to jump on the Rise of the Resistance attraction we had more important things to look for here. No too far into the park we found the first machine at Oscar’s Super Service.

As a continuing theme we have noticed so far this new Lumiere 50th design has replaced the 2021 dated design in this machine. The other two designs here have not changed.

This second machine is just a little stroll down Hollywood Boulevard and you will see a nice water fountain on the right side. There is a small building there called Hollywood Junction and this machine can be found around back of this building right beside an ATM. This set of designs so far is my favorite. I love the Joe Gardner one from the movie Soul and hope we see more designs from that movie. Plus everyone’s favorite droids R2-D2 and BB-8 have returned, and we couldn’t be without Cogsworth.

Epcot

Next it was time to head over to Epcot and so far this park has received quite a few new designs. First we headed behind Spaceship Earth towards the World Showcase and visited the two gift shops on either side.

Disney Traders was my first stop but this was in no particular order. The machine is located near the set of doors closed to the Mexico Pavilion side of the store. This design has replaced the 2021 design that used to be here. The new design of everyones favorite Conscience Jimmy Cricket is a great addition to this set.

Just across the open area that is usually reserved for special Fireworks viewing, we came to the Port of Entry store. The machine is on the opposite side of the store, near the doors that would be closed to the Canada Pavilion side. This new design of Genie from Aladdin replaces an old Duffy the Disney Bear design that was here previously.

Now we needed to take a bit of a walk past Canada, and the United Kingdom pavilions, but not quite to France. Instead we headed towards the International Gateway which is kind of a back entrance to Epcot and would lead you to the Skyliner station, Yacht / Beach Club and Boardwalk Inn Resorts. You don’t need to exit the park for this next instead it’s inside the World Travelers store near the exit. This design will definitely be a fan favorite as it features Figment the “un-official” mascot of Epcot. Maybe he is official at this point, it’s hard to say he does show up for most of the Festivals.

We next headed around the World Showcase lagoon skipping by most of the pavilions (for now?) and headed inside Norway. The main gift shop is also the exit for the Frozen Ever After ride, but you don’t need to go on the ride to access this machine. It can be found just inside the back set of doors. The new design is of Bruni a character you may recognize from Frozen 2. He replaces the 2021 Spaceship Earth design that was available here earlier in the year.

There was one last stop in Epcot before we headed out and that was back up towards the front of the park in the Living Seas Pavilion. Or you may know it better as the building with the Finding Nemo attraction. The gift shop at the end of the ride is where this machine is located. The designs are some more great new images including Flounder, Sebastian, Nemo and Dory.

Animal Kingdom

Once inside Animal Kingdom we just headed straight back towards the Tree of Life and our first stop was the Discovery Trading Co gift shop.

I always love these really cool looking machine cabinets and get a kick out of the crab on the top holding on tight to her penny. The new 50th design at this machine is of Simba from The Lion King.

**Updated 10/14/2021** The above machine was initially located at the Island Mercantile store but has been moved to make way for a new penny machine. This machine is now available right next to the 50th Simba machine at the Discovery Trading Co. You may notice that this machine used to have the 2021 Pluto design but that is now retired and replaced with this awesome new 50th design of Dante from the movie Coco.

It was now time to head over towards Dinoland USA and into the Chester & Hester Dino Treasures store which has been home to a dated coin for quite a few years now. This did previously have the 2021 Tree of Life design, but that is now gone and in its place is this new 50th Pua from Moana design.

Leaving Dinoland behind we now had a bit of a walk through the Asian and then into the African section of the park. Back near the Kilamanjaro Safari is a cart/tent called Curiosity Tourism and just behind that is the penny machine we were looking for. The new design here has the world famous meerkat Timon from The Lion King.

**UPDATED 04/22/2022**
Originally this design and machine were located outside the Dawa Bar in Harambe. But just recently that machine was removed, and the design dies were placed into a different machine up at the front of the park just past the touchpoint where you tap your MagicBand or ticket to enter the park. Nearby on the right side you will find the Garden Gate Gifts which is also where you can rent strollers and the machine is kind of tucked away in the corner near a Cast Member only building/door. This is where you can press the Pumbaa 50th penny.

Disney Springs

There were a few places I thought may get 50th designs here in Disney Springs but they seem to have kept them just in one place with has recently become a dumping group for a lot of machines with no where to go and that’s the Pin Trader store. Currently this store has a grand total of 6 pressed penny machines so if you only have one place to go and want to get a lot of pennies this would be a great place to check out.

This store is setup like an octagon and the machines can be found in between the pin walls that are the main focus in this store. Basically just walk around in a circle and you will find them pretty easily. This first machine has one new design of Miguel from Coco.

Just a few steps away is another machine with the second design available in this store. This may now have become my favorite design showing off the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland. I absolutely love this design.

That finished up all the designs currently available at the theme parks and Disney Springs, but we still had Resorts to visit so lets head over to those now.

Boardwalk Inn Resort

I’ve visited the Boardwalk area on Disney Property and just love the atmosphere especially at night. Maybe it’s because of my younger years hanging out at the Jersey Shore, but I’m always happy to have an excuse to go and visit. This resort does have quite a few machines scattered both inside and outside. The machine we were hunting down today can be found in the Main Lobby near the little gift shop.

POP Century Resort

In the past we have seen dated designs at the Art of Animation resort, but recently that resort has replaced their older 3-design machines with new 8-design touch screen versions which you can read about here. So I wasn’t surprised to see no new 50th design at that resort, but a quick walk across the Generation Gap bridge I headed into the POP Century resort and found what I was looking for.

POP Century currently has a total of 4 machines and all are located in the Everything POPs Food Court. This machine is the very first one you will encounter just near one of the check out areas for the gift shop before entering the food court. I was wondering when we would find the design for Daisy Duck and here is where she was hiding.

Contemporary Resort

I spent always a whole day using different modes of Disney Transportation checking out all the different resorts looking for more new pennies with not much success. But eventually after checking at the Magic Kingdom which you already read about above, I took a quick stop into the Contemporary Resort and found some new machines. This used to be home to the more glorious wall of pressed coin machines with a total of 6 all in one place. Now however those are all gone and in their place are two new 8-design machines. I’ll be reviewing the other non-50th designs in an upcoming post but for this article I wanted to just show off the 50th designs of Donald, Gus, Bambi and a great one of the Contemporary Resort. For those eagled eyed readers you may notice a new medallion machine just to the left in the above picture and you would be spot on. It contains 50th Medallions designs, and I’ve heard rumors that there may be a total of 50 medallions coming out as well so I’m going to be creating a separate post to track the medallions which you can check out here.

Polynesian Village Resort

Heading through the security checkpoint I headed up one floor to the Monorail station and took a quick ride on the Highway in the Sky over to the Polynesian Village Resort. On the second floor of the Grand Ceremonial House just outside the Moana Mercantile shop used to be a pressed penny and pressed quarter machines, but they have both been removed and replaced with a new 8-design pressed penny machine.

Only four of these designs are part of the 50th Anniversary set and include a great penny with a retro design of the Polynesian Village resort another of the opening day resorts. Then there are additional designs of the Orange Bird, Hei Her from Moana, and Stitch. The other four designs are also new but since they aren’t part of the 50th set I’ll leave them out of this post. If you want to read more about then check out this separate post. I was getting pretty tired from all this running around and there was no better place to be for a nice cool Dole Whip break downstairs at the Pineapple Lanai.

Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground

Once I was done with my quick snack it was off to one last resort and it was going to be a doozy. I had to take the monorail back to the Magic Kingdom, then hopped on a boat that took me over to Bay Lake and eventually let me out at the Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground. For anyone that has not visited this part of property it’s a fun place to visit, but it is huge. So big in fact that they have their own internal bus routes to help campers get to different areas of the campsite. We were headed to about the middle of the property where the Meadow Outpost is situated.

This building is setup almost like an old general store which I absolutely love. Plenty of snacks, camping necessities, souvenirs and this sweet pressed penny machine near the back set of doors. The designs here include the Fort Wilderness logo celebrating the last of the original opening day resorts, and then of course 50th designs for Chip and Dale.

Port Orleans Riverside Resort (Updated location)

The last two special pressed pennies took a little longer to be released just to due them being available at the Port Orleans Riverside Resort which wasn’t scheduled to reopen until October 14th, 2021. As soon as the resort reopened we headed over to search for these last few pennies that were originally located in the main Lobby. However recently the machines have been moved into the Arcade which can be found at the far end of the main lobby.

There are two machines in this area along the wall just as you enter arcade near the massage chairs. The first machine has the 50th Design of Edna Mode from The Incredibles movies. The second machine has the last 50th design of Abu from one of my favorite Disney movies Aladdin.

Phew, this has been quite an adventure with lots of running all around Walt Disney World property hunting all of these pennies down. We initially thought only 50 would be available, but Disney surprised us with the additional 3 designs celebrating the opening day resorts Contemporary, Polynesian and Fort Wilderness for a grand total of 53 pennies. We are not anticipating any of these designs being changed our or having new designs released during the 50th celebration, but if that does happen I’ll be sure to keep this post updated so be sure to check back for any changes.

Pressed Penny Booklet

For those of you that like a quick an easy way to store your collection Disney has you covered with a brand new Booklet you can use.

This has that really striking purpose color and the iridescent lettering used for Walt Disney World 50. Plus a fun new design of Cinderella Castle with that 50th medallion front and center, and of course Mickey and Minnie celebrating in their new costumes. I found the above in the Magic Kingdom Main Street Emporium but would assume these will be showing up in all the different parks and resorts very soon.

Our Friend’s Collection Display Ideas

Above is a beautiful display from fellow collector Katelyn A. with her 50th Anniversary Pressed Penny collection. Such a great idea, thank you for sharing!

Here we have another eye catching display from fellow collector Jim R. He mentioned that the poster in the middle was purchased from eBay and then after some careful ordination all the pennies fit perfectly around the perimeter. This is such a fantastic idea, thank you for sharing.

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