This is a bit of a strange situation that has recently taken place out in Disneyland California. So back in 2018 the California parks held a special event called Pixar Fest that ran through most of the spring into the fall season. To celebrate this Fest there were two special pressed penny sets released and you can read our original article about that here.

Now it’s been about 3 years and such a long time since Disneyland had any new pressed coin designs which changed just this past week. But these designs were only slightly new-ish.

First thing we notice that that these are part of the BFFs Forever collection, with very similar designs to what we found back in 2018. This set is available in a machine outside of the Bonanza Outfitters store which is actually where it was located back in 2018.

Above I put together a comparison so you can see them more clearly. The top row are the original released versions. They were pressed on copper pennies. The bottom set is from the newly returned machine which has been updated with the newer style payment system we have been finding everyone, plus the machine now supplies the penny to be pressed. The set I received do appear to be pressed on some shiny zinc pennies. Some obvious differences is the size of the actual characters has been reduced, the new set now has a dotted boarder and even the BFF Forever text is much smaller.

The reverse design has returned but is also altered slightly. The text is much smaller, and the surrounding stars and balls are a bit scarce now. Plus what I find very strange about this is that I’m pretty sure the parks are not currently celebrating a new Pixar Fest. So they just recreated new dies for this revamped machine. Trying to look on the bright side I guess it’s fun to have a variant set for my collection, but I’m a bit at a loss as to why Disney would have returned this set 3 years after they were considered retired.

Hopefully this is not something we will see happen more often. As much as I would love to fill in some gaps in my collection with old retired designs, this is not the way I would want to do that. Hopefully this is the only occurrence we will encounter like this, and I’m crossing my fingers for some beautiful brand NEW designs in the near future.

Enjoy the rest of your week and as always be sure to Keep on Pressing.