Over at Disney’s Magic Kingdom we have recently found ourselves back in Frontierland checking out new medallions and pressed pennies at a few classic (and one rethemed) attractions. This time we are heading into New Fantasyland for another new machine.

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is a classic Disney dark ride attraction. It was formerly the home of open day attraction Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. This has one of the first interactive queues that I can remember being created and certainly made waiting with young ones much easier. You then climb aboard a honey pot and make your way through a story featuring Pooh and his friends.

When you exit the ride you will find yourself inside the Hundred Acre Goods store. However if you are interested in just getting these new coins you can enter the store without having to ride the attraction.

As per usual plenty of stuffed Pooh characters, clothing, slippers and anything else you can imagine.

The new pressed penny machine is just inside the entrance / exit to the gift shop as you head back out into the park. This machine is amazing! Look at that cabinet design, it’s almost like Disney and the manufacturer has finally heard my complaints and requests for more themed machines. It just looks like a couple of oversized books up on the shelf. The colors are great, and I just love it. More please Disney.

The full set of pennies include designs featuring Pooh and all his friends. These designs just seem to be a bit more details than usual which I did notice in another new machine recently. I hope this is the trend we can expect moving forward. Look at that Eeyore design that is fantastic. Keep on Pressing!

---

With today being Opening Day for the 2025 Major League Baseball Season and a full day of baseball ahead of us, I thought it was a great time to review a new privately designed elongated coin.

The Lost Angeles Dodgers were the World Series Champions, so let’s review how their season went. They won an MLB-best 98 games. They had acquired reigning American League MVP Shohei Ohtani who put together a historic season in his first year as a Dodger. He was the first player to hit at least 50 home runs, and steal 50 bases. They ended the season 1st plan in the National League West division with a 98-64 record. As the playoffs began they faced off agains the San Diego Padres defeating them in 5 games. Next they went up against the New York Mets for the National League Championship taking 6 games to win the series.

In the World Series they found themselves up agains the always powerful New York Yankees. In game 5 the Dodgers upended the Yankees in a historic comeback to win the series and capture their 8th World Series title.

Coin designer Jamie Bennett created a special elongated coin to celebrate the Dodgers win. The design has a nice border similar to the stitching on a baseball. The Dodgers logo, 2024 and of 8x Champions all included in this fantastic coin.

The design was also made available in a denomination set that included a penny, nickel, dime, quarter, and half dollar. The above photo shows just a couple of the coins from the set.

Now that the 2025 season has officially started, how is your team looking? Need to make some trades already? That’s part of the ups and downs of being a sports fan. I wish you all the best of luck with your teams, and in between watching games be sure to get out there and press some coins.

Play Ball!

---

Some of you may not know that we also have a YouTube channel. There we post videos each week similar to our blog here, all about elongated coins, collectible medallions, unique coins and plenty of tip and tricks to help with your own collections. Well recently we crossed a milestone of 1,000 subscribers which is so amazing.

Now this celebration is no just for me, it’s for all of us as this is such as fun community we have created together. So with that said I want to help one of you create your very own custom elongated coin. At the bottom of this post I have a link to the contest form for you to use to submit your design idea. There is NO specific topic, you can create a design about whatever you like so be creative. You do not need to be a professional artist, trust me I know.

You can create either a horizontal or vertical design depending on what you think will work best for your concept. The second page is where you can fill in your contact information so I can reach out to you. Please make sure you don’t use any copyrighted images or logos, and any design considered inappropriate will be disqualified. Once completed you can then email your entry form to the email address listed on the form. Submissions will be accepted until April 30th, 2025 when the contest will close.

CLICK HERE FOR CONTEST ENTRY FORM

At that time I’ll review all the submissions and pick my favorite that we will then move forward with creating. I’ll cover all the costs to produce and press the elongated coins. The winner will receive 25 elongated pennies of their winning design, along with a special denomination set (penny, nickel, dime and quarter) that will only be available to the winner. We will also create an additional 200 pennies of the winning design that will then be available to all of you for free. But we will go over that in a future post when we unveil the new coins design.

I can’t wait to see what you all come up with and hope you have fun working on your own coin design. Don’t forget you will also get nominated for our Top Voted Coin Contest later in the year. Thank you all once again for your support. If you haven’t checked out our YouTube channel be sure to head over an take look I have it linked here.

It’s been a lot of fun sharing the hobby with all of you and I can’t wait to see where we go next. Good luck and Keep on Pressing!

---

During our little family vacation to Fort Myers we made a stop at the Edison & Ford Winter Estates. This is one of those vacation spots that is probably more for the parents than the kids. At least my kids weren’t too interested in a bit of a history lesson while on vacation but I was just too intrigued by this place not to stop. Plus I’m sure you can guess, they had a pressed penny machine.

What exactly is this place, well it’s the actual winter homes for Thomas Edison (yes that Thomas Edison) and Henry Ford. Edison build his winter home in 1886 along with a second home for a friend/partner and a laboratory. In 1916 Henry Ford purchased the estate next door called “The Mangoes” in order to spend more time with his friend and mentor Thomas Edison. The two vacationed here until Edison’s death in 1931.

This is quite a sprawling property. When you arrive there is a parking lot that first brings you to the gift shop and museum where you can purchase your admission tickets. Inside the museum is a plethora of artifacts and details about both Thomas Edison and Henry Ford’s life, careers and innovations. One of them being Thomas Edison’s 1916 Ford Model T touring car.

In a separate building from the museum is the Edison Botanic Research Laboratory. In 1927 Edison, Ford and Harvey Firestone formed the research corporation and the lab was build in 1928. The lab was designed with one purpose in mind, to find a natural source of rubber that could be grown in the United States. Divided into six sections, parts of the laboratory operated similar to an assembly line, with critical tasks being performed in each area.

With the museums completed, we had to cross the street over the second part of the property where the winter homes were located. The landscaping was gorgeous, and well kept. There were pathways that allowed you to explore the entire property including Edison’s personal office, outdoor pool area and other maintenance buildings.

The first home we visited was Thomas Edison’s. It’s two buildings connected by a covered pathway. Visitors are not allowed inside the buildings as they are fully furnished and filled with historic artifacts. But the windows and doorways are open so you can peek inside.

A short walk away is the Henry Ford estate. It was a beautiful look two story home, with a huge porch on the front facing the water. Nearby was a garage that Henry Ford used to house and maintain his personal vehicles, but is now setup like a small automotive museum.

Once we had finished checking out the entire estate we headed back across the street, past the gift shop and just before the parking lot was a covered restrooms area. This is where I found the pressed penny machine hiding. I was a bit worried during our visit as I couldn’t find it in the gift shop, museum or any of the estate buildings and thought maybe it had been removed. Thankfully I was wrong.

It was a nice well maintained CTM group machine. The vinyl wrapping on the machine looked great and I had no issues with pressing my coins.

The penny designs included images of Thomas Edison, a Ford Model-T car, and a few of Edison’s famous inventions including the Lightbulb and Photograph.

I really enjoyed the Edison & Ford Winter Estates, probably more than I initially thought I would. My original plan was to just stop by and press the pennies. However I’m glad we decided to purchase tickets and enjoy the afternoon exploring this amazing property. Keep on Pressing!

---

Recently I went and spent a leisurely day over at the Universal Florida parks. Part of this was just a day to relax and enjoy the parks, the other part was to work on our coin maps making sure they were up to date. The maps are primarily for elongated coin collectors, but that doesn’t stop me from keeping an eye on for new medallion sets which is what happened on this trip.

I’m not sure why but whenever I visit Universal’s Islands of Adventure park I always head towards Seuss Landing and then work my way counter clockwise through the park. I guess it’s similar to how people have a preference in Epcot going around the World Showcase (Mexica or Canada first?).

This section of the park is certainly geared more around younger guests and their families. However I always enjoy taking my time in this section. The theming, colors, wonky shapes and building designs are incredible, plus if you are lucky enough to have a character interaction they are always a lot of fun an memorable. They do have a few different shops in this area, but one of my favorites is the Gertrude McFuzz Fine Feathered Finery.

This is usually where you can find all your Grinch related items, and during the Holiday season is where the Grinch does his meet and greets.

As I visited this store, originally I was on the look out for the 3-design penny machine that was just inside the doors. Instead of that machine I found a much larger medallion machine in its place.

I love the bright colors of this machine, the red and blue really stand out especially when most of the store is green. The cabinet does have a slight Seuss-like shape to it that I thought was a fun detail.

It has been a little while since I last collected medallions from Universal, and I noticed that the price seems to have crept up a bit on the individual coins. If you only want one it will cost $7.00, but the cost for the entire set is $20. So you definitely get a much better deal per coin picking up all four. The designs include some classic Dr. Seuss characters including The Cat in the Hat, Thing 1 and Thing 2, The Grinch and Max, and Sam I Am with his Green Eggs and Ham.

The reverse image is the same for all of the coins in this set and features the Dr. Seuss logo with the Cat’s hat overtop of the “S” and the trademark information along the bottom.

This is another fun set of collectible medallions, but seems to have been released at the cost of a pressed penny machine. I’m not sure how I feel about that since my collection is primarily elongated coins it’s a little upsetting to see them be replaced by these much more expensive medallions. I hope this does not become a trend so we will have to wait and see. Keep on Collecting!

---

Not too long ago I was written about the Frankford Wonder Ball Disney 100 Collectible Coins. They were hollow chocolate balls with some candy inside and a mystery coin featuring a Disney Character. As finished up that collection I found out that there were other versions and I set out to try and acquire the Mickey and Friends Wonder Mates.

I put quite a few miles on my car driving around to numerous Wal-marts, Targets and Five Belows trying to find as many as I could. Eventually I was able to pick up 16 and that seemed to exhaust the inventory of my local stores. Unfortunately I came to find out that this product had been discontinued meaning stores were no longer getting any more. I visited amazing and eBay trying to pick up any other unopened boxes but was sticking out. This was going to be a bit tougher than I had anticipated.

First let’s review the difference in product names. The other version was called Wonder Ball as the chocolate was a hollow ball. These were called Wonder Mates because the chocolate was formed to create a hollow Mickey. I did try this chocolate and….it’s still terrible so let’s just focus on the coins.

After you open the box, there is a plastic tray that slides out with the foil wrapped chocolate secured on one side, and the coin on the other. The coin is wrapped in a small plastic bag and includes a copy of the collection checklist just as we found with the other set. This set includes 15 standard coins, and 3 rare coins (technically one is super rare) for a total of 18 coins to complete the set.

The coins are very similar to the Disney 100 set. They are solid metal and have some weight to them, however I’m not sure of the metallic mixture they use. The image on the coin is just a colored sticker. As an experiment I did try to remove one and it was on there pretty good so I don’t feel like these will easily peel off over time but you never know.

On the reverse side of each coin is the Disney Mickey and Friends copyright information, and the boarder of the coin has some cute Mickey heads. After opening all the boxes I was missing quite a few of the standard coins, and still hadn’t found any of the rare ones. With a bunch of duplicates I wanted to try and avoid eBay for now and figured my best option for now was to try and trade with some other collectors.

When I was working on the Disney 100 set I had traded with other collectors through the Disney Coin Pressers Facebook group, but it became so popular that the admins decided to create a separate group just for the Frankford Candy Medallions. That’s where I posted a photo of the coins I had to trade, and the list of what I needed. After a few back and forth messages I was able to acquire quite a few that I was missing, and also got rid of all of my duplicates which was a plus.

After a few weeks the traded coins started to arrive and I went through each one to make sure the trades were correct. My set was almost complete but I was still missing one coin, and of course it was the Super Rare coin featuring Steamboat Willie. It seemed that this was truly a super rare coin as there were quite a few people in the Facebook group also looking for that one. With no other option at the moment I headed to eBay. There were a few available with crazy asking prices almost reaching $100. I did find one listing that for some reason wasn’t as high. I submitted a lower offer and to my surprise the seller accepted.

That was it, I had successfully acquired the entire set of this retired collection. You can see the standard coins are all that gold color, and the rare coins across the top are different colors Blue, Pink and the super rare Steamboat Willie was Silver.

I mentioned earlier the included checklist that you got with each coin. This also had a similar offer to the Disney 100 set where you could submit a photo with 6 box bar codes and six coins as proof of purchase to get a collector’s coin book. This being a retired product I wasn’t sure if this would still be honored. Since I really didn’t have anything to lose I went ahead and submitted the request online.

The insert did state it could take 6-8 weeks to arrive and when I thought I was just out of luck, around week 10 it finally arrived in my mail.

The booklet is a twi-fold design made of rigid cardboard. There are cutouts for each coin with a faded image of each design in the designated location. The booklet also comes with a strip of little sticky dots that you apply to each coin and stick into the booklet holding them in place. I tried to not use those but the coins just fall out anytime you try to move it around.

They do look really nice all secured into the booklet. I did contemplate just keeping these in my standard 2×2 cardboard flips but I found I just preferred them in this booklet. It is very heavy when all the coins are loaded inside so be careful moving them around.

Once again I had a lot of fun running around trying to find the chocolate mickey’s and tearing into each box to see what coin I received. It was a nice accomplishment to eventually get the entire set, however it seems like I only just barely was able to finish it. Frankford does have a few other similar sets featuring Jurassic World and Super Mario that I’ve thought about trying and just haven’t yet. Since both this Mickey & Friends and Disney 100 sets are now retired maybe they will release a new Disney set and I might just wait for that.

Keep on Collecting!

---

In 1999 Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa started a tradition. Their talented pastry chef’s designed and decorated a life sized Gingerbread House and it immediately became a fan favorite attraction.

Then during the holiday season for 2024 they celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Gingerbread House.

For those of you that may not have been able to visit the Grand Floridian during the holiday’s, it’s truly a magical experience. The gingerbread house is huge, probably standing about 10 feet tall at the highest point.

The details are incredible, and there are so many hidden mickeys and other easter eggs you could spend all day searching for them.

It takes hundreds of pounds of honey, sugar, flour, chocolate and spices to decorate the entire house. You can even see the individual shingle and pieces of gingerbread used all around the outside.

This is also not just a facade, but actually has a store inside. Cast members are located inside behind a counter and sell all different holiday treats including the famous gingerbread shingles.

To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Grand Floridian’s Gingerbread House designer Joe Watts created the above elongated coin design. He pressed the design on silver quarters for a unique collectible. The details of the house, the Mickey head border really make this a great new design and a perfect addition to any Disney coin collector.

---

Knuckledusters, knucks, iron fist, paperweight, all better known as Brass Knuckles. A melee weapon used primarily in hand-to-hand combat. They are fitted and designed to be worn around the knuckles of a human hand. Despite their name, they are often made from other metals, plastics or carbon fibers, not necessarily brass. They are designed to preserve and concentrate a punch’s force increasing the damage inflicted on the target and reduces the likelihood of damage to the attacker’s fingers. This weapon has been controversial for its easy conceivability and is illegal to own and use in a number of countries. Their origins date back to ancient times and have evolved over centuries.

They are probably most recognizable from appearing in movies and tv shows depicting stories of gritty street violence, crime dramas and maybe most notably the mafia.

Continuing with her Pressed Penny Mafia PPM themed elongated coins, designer Amy Brennan has released her latest offering. The design features a set of Brass Knuckles front and center, with the year 2024 inside each of the finger holes, and PPM Hooligan along the bottom. If you are interested in this coin, or any of Amy’s other elongated coins you can contact her through her Facebook group Pressed Penny Mafia – PPM.

Stay safe out there, and as always Keep on Pressing!

I’ve started getting some messages that the numbered mini-sets of collectible medallions currently available around Walt Disney World Property have started being retired. This includes the Marvel’s Avengers, Snow White, and Winnie the Pooh sets.

As we get more information and pictures of the new coins we will share them here. As always, if you run into any of the new medallion designs please feel free to leave us a comment and you’ll get credit for in our post for the find. Happy hunting!!

---

Hollywood Studios – Celebrity 5 & 10

Inside Hollywood Studios as you first head up Hollywood Boulevard the Celebrity 5 & 10 store is along the right side of the walkway. Inside we notice that the medallion machine marquee has changed to some generic signage, no longer showing off the coin designs. We are thinking this may be due to the “new” coin only being temporary. This coin design of Goofy with the Tower of Terror and Hollywood Studios logo may look familiar. It’s the same coin that we found at the Disney Store outside the Parks on International Drive. The other three designs are unchanged. We will keep a close eye on this machine as I feel that a different design will make its debut here soon.

Magic Kingdom – Adventureland Breezeway

When visiting Magic Kingdom head into Adventureland and across from the Swiss Family Treehouse is the Breezeway connecting to Liberty Square, and is also where you can find some restrooms. Here you will also find the medallion machine. There is only new one coin available here but we have seen it before. The design features Mickey and Pluto in front of Cinderella Castle. Just like the coin from Hollywood Studios, this medallion was originally available at the International Drive Disney Store.

EPCOT – Disney Traders Gift Shop

We found a couple “new” medallions over at EPCOT. First we visit the Disney Trader Gift Shop, and the machine can be found near one of the side entrances/exits. The design here features Donald and Daisy using their arms to create a heart around Spaceship Earth. This is another of the coins we had previous found at The International Drive Disney Store, so not really new, but new to this location.

EPCOT – Port of Entry Gift Shop

At the nearby Port of Entry gift shop is where we found the second new medallion. This time it actually is a brand new design featuring Bruno and Mirabel from Encato with the tag line “We Don’t Talk about Bruno”. You just sang that last part didn’t you? 🙂

Animal Kingdom – Ziwani Traders

Inside Animal Kingdom all the way in the back Africa section of the park you will find the Ziwani Traders store near the Safari attraction. Only one design (other than the new 2025 dated coin) has been swapped, but it’s a duplicate design that was available at the International Drive Disney store like a few others we have found listed above. This is still a nice looking coin featuring Minnie Mouse, the Tree of Life and the Animal Kingdom logo.

Disney Springs – Pin Trader

Pin Trader at Disney Springs has one medallion machine. Of the four designs only one has remained the same (Buzz and Woody), the other three designs are new and feature Walt & Mickey, Cinderella, and Goofy & Mickey.

Disney Springs – World of Disney Machine #1

Over at the giant World of Disney store they have two medallion machines available. At the first machine the Mickey & Minnie 2025 is unchanged. The other three have been swapped out, however two of them the Donald & Daisy, and Chip & Dale designs are duplicates of ones available inside the Magic Kingdom at the Emporium. The only new design is the one featuring Pooh & Tigger.

Disney Springs – World of Disney Machine #2

The second machine inside the World of Disney Store had most of the designs updated. The Mickey & Minnie design is the same as can be found inside the Magic Kingdom Emporium and also at the Fort Wilderness Campground. Goofy & Pluto is another duplicate design found at the Emporium. The Dumbo design has remained unchanged, and Stitch is the only new coin design available at this location.

All-Star Sports Resort – Game Point Arcade

When visiting the All-Star Sports resort just head inside the main lobby building towards the Game Point Arcade and you will find the medallion machine right outside. There are two new designs located here, the first has Mickey, Donald and Goofy playing different sports and has the All-Star Sports Resort logo along the bottom. The second features Lightning McQueen from Pixar’s Cars movie.

All-Star Music Resort – Note’able Games

Over at the All-Star Music Resort inside the main lobby building you will find the medallion machine outside the Note’able Games arcade. The first new coin that I do think will stick around features Mickey, Donald and Goofy surrounded by some music notes that would fit with the resort theme. The second design features Nemo, Marlin and Dory “Just Keep Swimming”. This one I’m not sure exactly how it fits in at this resort but we will keep on eye on it for any changes. The third new design features The Genie.

All-Star Movies Resort – World Premier Food Court

Next we visit the All-Star Sports resort and the medallion machine can be found inside the World Premier Food Court. This one is interesting because all four designs have been changed, however the first one featuring Mickey and a Fire Department Shield was originally located inside the Magic Kingdom at the Hall of Champions store. The other three designs are new featuring Pinocchio, Tinker Bell and Ariel. With all of these designs featured on the marquee I feel like these are here to stay.

Contemporary Resort – Outside Arcade

When visiting the Contemporary Resort you need to head into the main building and up to the 4th Floor Concourse. Outside The Game Station Arcade you will find a wall of souvenir machines including the medallion machine. There are two new designs available here featuring Mike & Sully from Monsters, Inc, and Jiminy Cricket.

Polynesian Village Resort – Moana Mercantile

A short trip over on the monorail and we find ourselves at the Polynesian Village Resort. Inside the Great Ceremonial House (main lobby) up on the second floor is the Moana Mercantile. Just outside that shop is the medallion machine with one new design featuring Stitch and Angel.

Grand Floridian Resort – Monorail Station

The Grand Floridian Resort is always a gorgeous place to visit. Once inside if you head up to the second floor just outside the doors to the Monorail Station is where the medallion machine is located. Two of the designs have been replaced and now feature new coins with the Mad Hatter and Princess Aurora.

In case you missed it we created another custom elongated coin. The twist however is that we are awarding them to elongated coin designers by having all of you in our collecting community vote for your favorite design. You can read all about the our new design here.

The voting response was incredible and we actually ended up with two designs tied with the same amount of votes. So I made the executive decision to aware the top four designs that received the most votes. In no particular order let’s take a look at your favorite designs and learn a bit about the creative people behind them.

---

Sunflower by Kristina Griffiths

This beautiful design was inspired by Kristina’s favorite flower and is also the symbol of her Youtube channel called Pocket Poet. Paul Connor helped create the final design and rolled the elongated coins. This was created as a promotion for her channel which you should go and check out. There re lots of fantastic videos sharing her coin collection and holiday travels vlogs. She does have a few copies of her Sunflower coin still available, and if you are interested in one you can reach out to Kristina through er Youtube Channel linked here.

---

National Bacon Day by Scott Eddy

This fun design was created to celebrate December 30th which is known as National Bacon Day, definitely a holiday I can get behind. Scott has been creating elongated coin designs for about 3 years and is up to 24 designs with help from Oded Paz, Paul Connor, and Alex Mruk. He has a group called the Fresno $1.00 Copper Penny Club. Members of the group can get copper elongated at the low price of $1.00 each, and the pennies are acquired from various group member travels, bulk and collection purchases. These are offered exclusively through Fresno Elongated Pennies Facebook group linked here. Scott is also a new TEC Board member governor and looks forward to meeting new faces and there TEC members. His coin designs are available through his eBay store linked here.

---

Steamboat Willie by Oded Paz

This familiar character is Steamboat Willie (Mickey Mouse) on an elongated coin. The design was created to celebrate this version of Mickey entering the public domain. Oded has been creating elongated coin designs for quite awhile with his first design back in February 2006. He has over 270 designs already crated, and is currently working on 18 that he has been commissioned to make. Most he designs and rolls himself, and others he designs and has engraved on a die-ring or die-shaft that is then sent to the customer for their own machine either in home or publicly placed.

Oded wanted to let you all know that the process of making a custom design is very simple. All you need is an idea. Nothing more. If you are interested in working with Oded on your own design he can be reached by email to elongateds@sbcglobal.net. He will help take your idea of what you want t see on the coin, and help crate it for you. Not all designers and rollers are the same. Responsiveness and punctuality are important factors to be considered, as well as their previous work, how long they have been creating designs as well as their name and reputation. Most times great work is not cheap, and cheap work is not great.

---

Paris Olympics 2024 by Alex Mruk

This is a set rather than a single design making it an even larger project. Together these designs make up the Paris Olympics games series of 10 elongated coins depicting different sports. Alex started making his own designs in late 2023. Over the last year he has made over 100 engravings for himself and other creators. The designs he makes can be completely unique or heavily inspired by what’s around. He tries to create his own images for the engravings but does occasionally use a graphic artist when the subject is outside his ability. He engrave this own dies and rolls all his own coins. He is happy to help anyone that is interested in making their own design. His contact email is CopperKeepsakes@gmail.com or you can visit his Facebook group Copper Keepsakes linked here if you are interested in more information.

---

There you have it, those are our first group of Top Voted Privately Designed elongated coins as chosen by all of you. Thank you all so much for taking the time to check out the designs, and place your votes. This is an amazing community we have created here and I love the positivity of sharing our love of this hobby, and am grateful we can celebrate all of our amazing design creators.

I’m planning on doing this again later this year, and want to try and focus on as many privately designed coins this year as I can. I’ve already started acquiring a lot of new ones and can’t wait to share them with you. Be sure to follow here on our Blog, and Subscribe to our YouTube channel to get notified of all our new uploads. Please be sure to check out all the links above to our top Voted designers. Whether you want to pick up a copy of the winning design, or check out any of their other available coins. Shower them all with heartfelt congratulations for their hard work and dedication to helping expand all our collections. Keep on Pressing and Keep on Creating!!

---