I love Disney, and have loved Disney since I was young. My family was lucky enough to visit both Florid and California parks on numerous occasions during my youth and that obsession has continued into my adulthood. Of course part of that love included all the amazing elongated coins and now that I live in Florida keeping up with my Walt Disney World collection has been much easier. The West Coast collection however is a bit more challenging to maintain. In previous posts I’ve mentioned the different Facebook groups I’m a part of for elongated coin collecting and I can’t state this enough, those communities are fantastic. Not just a wealth of knowledge, but with very kind friends offering to press a set along their travels. This is where my friend Kelly comes into this story. She is an active member of one of these groups and visits the California Disney parks quite often and has become my penny pressing proxy.

Since all the park closures a couple years ago Disneyland has been very slow with releasing any new pressed penny designs. I’m not sure why, but it was a long time before anything new was found. Then it seemed like the flood gates opened and within a short period of time there were three new sets of coins. Kelly rose to the occasion and headed out to the parks to press quite a few sets from what I’m told for us desperate collectors, and they all just arrived so let’s take a closer look at them.

First up we have a returning machine inside Disneyland at the Pieces of Eight – Pirates of the Caribbean gift shop. These designs were previously released back in 2016 and we posted about them here. From what I was told that original machine and designs were a bit problematic. Inconsistent pressings and maintenance issues forced it to be removed not long after it was released.

With the return of this machine it appears they have fixed the issue and the pennies I received looked in much better shape then the originals I got in 2016. The designs haven’t changed, but it’s nice to see this fun set back for guests and pirates to collect.

Sticking around Disneyland but on the opposite side of the park in Tomorrowland is where the next set of pressed pennies can be found. The machine is located inside the Star Command Suppliers gift shop for the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters attraction.

Inside this shop we have a brand new 8-design digital touch screen machine which replaced a 3-design machine that you can learn about here. These don’t seem to be as prevalent (Yet) in the California parks, but I have a feeling more of these will be appearing before we know it.

This set of new elongated coins primarily focuses on Buzz Lightyear with a few designs of the famous Space Ranger, as well as Zurg and a Little Green Man. But also includes a few Toy Story pennies with Woody and Jessie included.

The third set we are going to take a look at today takes us across the promenade and into the California Adventure park, and then follow the sound of water towards the Grizzly River Run white water rafting attraction to find Rushin’ River Outfitters.

Didn’t I just mention we would be seeing more of these 8-design machines, well here you go. Technically I guess this was cheating since I already knew it was released, but I still hold my belief that many more of these will be showing up soon in the West Coast parks. I do like the cabinet on this machine as it just blends in so nicely to this rustic wood cabin style building.

These pennies are fantastic. I am an absolute fan of the Pixar movie Up! and was so happy to see a full set of 8 new pennies celebrating this movie. That one design with the house and all the balloons is amazing, plus I really like the Wilderness Explorers logo and of course the Grape Soda badge is just perfect.

Well that’s going to do it for new Disneyland pressed coins so far and I’m really impressed with what we have seen so far. Hopefully they don’t take too long before bringing out even more new designs because us collectors have been waiting quite a while and are ready for more. Plus I’ve got my hookup to hopefully making acquiring those new coins a bit easier. As soon as we have more I’ll be sure to share all the details with you my amazing collecting friends and family.

Not too long ago my cousin Joel had visited me from Canada for a week here in Florida and we spent a good amount of time at the theme parks. It’s pretty easy to convince your family to visit when you have some world class parks near your house. While Joel was visiting he helped me with some of our pressed penny missions including the Mickey & Minnie Runaway Railroad YouTube video you can check out here. He even filmed an outro for that video so be sure to let him know he did a great job! Of course most of our days at the park were spent waiting in long lines for the marquee attractions and during one of those times I thought we should see if there were any pressed penny machines located near his home and of course we found some.

Once he was back home and he found himself with a weekend off from work his first stop was the Waterloo Region Museum. Notice the snow? While he was visiting Florida his home town was hit with quite a snow storm that caused some issues with his return trip. Gotta love Canada!

The museum is also known as the Ken Seiling Waterloo Region Museum and is a campus of historical attractions and preservation facilities including a Heritage Village, Waterloo Region Hall of Fame, and Curatorial Centre. There are two exhibit galleries. The long term exhibit explores 12,000 years of history and development of the Waterloo Region. The short term exhibit gallery showcases its own collection and traveling exhibits from other museums on a variety of topics.

I was informed that the pressed penny machine can be found just outside the main gift shop that is at the front of the museum. Admission is not required to access the machine so if you prefer to just stop in and press a set you can.

The designs on these pennies were themed around some of the permanent exhibits within the museum. The machine pressed them all very nicely (be sure to use US Cents only!) and I’m so happy to have these join my Canadian collection of pressed coins. Plus I’m excited to have recruited yet another family member into our pressed penny community. Hopefully I can convince Joel to keep tracking down more machines near his home, or maybe I’ll just have to make a trek back up to the Great White North for a family reunion and squishing’ mission.

As many of you may know I’ve been collecting elongated coins for a long time, and it really all started with a trip to Walt Disney World when I was young. There have been some times during my collecting career when it’s slowed down, or even stopped for a period of time, but that itch always shows up eventually and I’m sucked back in.

Out of all the coins I’ve collected throughout the years I still maintain that the heart of my collection are the ones I’ve pressed at Walt Disney World and Disneyland. I’ve collected hundreds maybe even thousands of Disney pressed coins with designs running the gamut of classic characters, attractions, and even some depicting Disney historical themes. As an avid collector of course I have my options about designs I would love to see made available in the parks and even made a post about my wish list that you can read about here.

There is one design however that I didn’t even think of. Thankfully our friend, fellow collector and elongated coin designer Don Cade has created an “Unofficial” Disneyland and Walt Disney World Pressed Coin Collector penny. He has created variations of this design over the past few years and as soon as I found out about this fantastic design I picked up each version I could get. Some are also available pressed on different denominations but those tend to go pretty quickly.

If you are interested in one of these special coins, or any of Don’s other unique designs he makes them available through the TEC Elongated Collector Club Facebook Group. It would be nice to see Disney release an Official version in one of the machines as I think it would be very popular, but to be honest I’m extremely happy with Don’s version and may need to pick up some extras so I can hand them out to other collectors at the parks.

Have a fantastic week, stay safe and as always Keep on Pressing!

In my collection I have thousands of different elongated coins. Many are from big name Theme Parks, aquariums, zooms, museums and then some road side attractions during my travels. I love them all, but I do have a very special spot in my collection for privately designed pressed coins. These are something that I have only really recently gotten into and just fell in love with because of their uniqueness and also to help support our community of very talented designers. One of these designers has become a close friend and we chat about our collections together quite often. Her name is Amy and she is the Boss Lady over at the Facebook group called the Pressed Penny Mafia – PPM.

As you can see I am an official card carrying member of the PPM club and since joining I’ve been able to acquire the entire set of custom elongated coins Amy has created for the club. We helped create a fun little film-noir style video on our Youtube Channel showcasing all the available designs at that time. Since then however Amy has continued to release a few new coins each year and I’m so thankful that I was able to get copies of her latest coin and #13 in the series.

This is such a fantastic designs I really love it. PPM Lucky Penny #13 with the large Shamrock in the middle. I also gave a sneak peek at some of her other designs in the above picture, but you can check out more on her other designs in one of our previous posts here.

Something I was not expecting in my package with Lucky #13 was a special additional Amy had sent my way. It was wrapped separately and marked as “Surprise” which I absolutely was. There was a second elongated coin included with Amy herself on the coin, and her name in beautiful script. This turned out really great and I’m happy to have this included in my collection.

Thank you as always to my friend Amy for continuing to release all these new privately designed elongated coins. Each one is better than the last, and I’m always excited to see what she comes up with next. If you are not already beside to visit the Pressed Penny Mafia PPM Facebook group which I have linked at the top of this post. Membership is completely free, and the community we have there of fellow collectors and enthusiasts are really great and lots of fun. Plus you get the inside tip on any of Amy’s brand new designs and my understanding is she still has some inventory of her other pennies available.

Stay safe friends and as always Keep on Pressing!

Recently I received a special envelope in my mail from our friends at TEC The Elongated Collectors Club. I was pretty sure all my club dues were up to date so I wasn’t sure exactly what may have arrives. To my surprise the envelope inlcuded this beautiful card and a nice message letting me know I had earned a couple recruiter coins. This was thanks to a couple of our readers joining TEC and mentioned my name.

Here is a closer look at the 2021 recruiter coins a penny and nickel.  It was designed by current TEC Secretary Terri V, she also worked on the included card and mailing these all out. These are always fun coins of appreciation from our club and I’m honored to receive them. Thank you to our latest TEC members that mentioned my name, I hope you are enjoying the TEC newsletters and special coins throughout the year.

My passion for the hobby has always been about sharing experiencing and connecting with fellow collectors.  May times I’ve submitted questions to the club about collecting processes or suggestions on specific topics and our fellow members are always so eager to share their experiences and knowledge. If you haven’t already, be sure to visit the club website at TECNews.org to find out more.

Thank you all for helping to create and maintain our wonderful community we have, I love reading all your comments, and please feel free to leave me any questions about pressed coins and I will be more than happy to help.  Take care and Keep on Pressing!

If you are like me and always following the latest Disney parks news I’m sure you have been inundated lately with videos and blog posts about the Galactic Starcruiser or what some were just calling the Star Wars Hotel. Before we get too into this post I will just say up front that I have not personally experienced this, but from what I have seen I would love to it sometime in the future. For now let’s just take a little bit of a look inside and then I’ll share with you something very special that some friends of mine send over.

From the outside the building looks like a pretty unassuming terminal. This is where you would park your vehicle, get checked in, take some special photos infant of the Galactic Starcruiser logo wall. Then you head inside for a virtual transport trip up to the Halcyon ship situated above our planet just waiting for guests to arrive.

Once aboard your experience begins. This is something that I think is a bit hard for some people to grasp with this place. It really is not just a Star Wars themed hotel, but instead a fully immersive Star Wars experience. You will find yourself in the middle of various different story lines that include characters for the First Order, Rebels, Resistance, Jedi and more. During your stay there are different tasks you will be asked to participate in like keeping Chewbacca hidden from the First Order, or smuggling some Coaxiom back from Batuu (in Hollywood Studios).

At some time during your trip you will go through training on the Halcyon’s bridge utilizing the shields and other defense systems which may come in handy later on during your voyage. Plus there is the ever popular Lightsaber training and so much more.

The voyages are three day and two night adventures so of course you will have a cabin to yourself, and their design really does look like you are on a Star Wars movie. The details I have seen on the Halcyon ship are really amazing, and I can only imagine are so much better in person.

Of course this is Disney so you know there is a ton of special merchandise available for Halcyon passengers only. As I mentioned above I have not experienced this myself yet, but I did have some friends attend one of the first adventures after the grand opening. During their stay they received this special collectible coin / medallion and were nice enough to send it over my way knowing how much I enjoy collecting coins.

They mentioned that this coin was left for them in their cabin, but that only one was given per group / cabin. They had four people in their group and hoped they could get one for each person, but were told that was not the case. I have heard that these were only given out to each cabin during those first few cruises, but now are only available for those lucky enough to upgrade to a Captain’s Table dining experience. One side of the coin has the Halcyon Starcruiser logo, and the reverse side has a profile design of the Halcyon ship.

As you can see from the picture above, this coin is very large. I included a US penny and quarter for scale. I’m not sure of the type of medal it’s comprised of, but it definitely is quite heavy. I absolutely love this and am so thankful for my friends who offered to gift this to my collection. Now I just have to figure out how to safely store and protect this.

On a quick side note before we got, my friends did mention that they did not see any pressed penny machine onboard the Halcyon or in the terminal where they checked in. I was kind of hoping maybe there would be a very special machine released for this adventure, but as of right now that is not the case.

Have you taken a trip aboard the Galactic Starcruiser Halcyon? What did you think and was it worth the price. Let me know in the comments below, I’d love to hear all about it.

Have a fantastic week and Keep on Pressing!

I wish I could say that my family just got off of a wonderful Disney cruise to the Caribbean but that is unfortunately not the case. My wife and I did go on the Disney Dream a few years ago for our Anniversary and you read about that adventure here. To be honest we have really just been waiting for our kids to get a little older before we embark on another cruise and I can’t wait for that trip.

Disney does have their fifth ship the Wish about the start its inaugural sailings later this year. Then they have their sixth and seventh ships scheduled in the near future as well. There are certainly lots of new things happening with Disney Cruise Line and I’m happy to also report that they have released some brand new pressed pennies as well here in the Port Canaveral Terminal.

Now before you hop in your car and try to press a set of these at the terminal I want to state that this machine is not available to the general public. It is located beyond the terminal security checkpoint meaning that only Disney Cruise Line passengers about to board their ship will have access to the machine. This has always been the case here at Port Canaveral and makes these pressed pennies very sought after by collectors.

As I mentioned above my family doesn’t have any Cruise trips scheduled so I was a little worried about how I could get a set of these new pennies. Thankfully I was able to cruise some very nice friends online who offered to pick up a set on their next cruise. Previously there were two separate 3-design machines in the terminal but those have both been removed and replaced with a new touchscreen 8-design model instead.

This is a great new set of pennies with images of the Disney Cruise Line logo, Captain Mickey, Captain Minnie, and their friends. Now the only thing I was sad to see is that there are no longer penny designs for each of the Disney Ships. Those designs were always very popular with cruisers to commemorate each ship they had cruised on. Maybe once Disney has all their new ships in active service we will see some updated designs or maybe even a second machine for just those pennies. I know those would be extremely popular.

Do you have an upcoming Disney Cruise? Be sure to leave me a commend down below, I’d love to hear all about it. Happy Cruising and Keep on Pressing!