What’s better to celebrate Halloween than some creepy crawly bugs?  As I’ve mentioned in the past I am not a fan of bugs.  I don’t want to touch them, don’t want them near me and especially try everything I can to keep them out of our house.  But then I read online that a new penny machine is available at a place called Insectarium just outside of Philadelphia.  Well I tuck my pant legs into my socks and summon all my courage to not just bug out (sorry I had to) and do what I need to do for the pennies.

The Insectarium is located about 20 minutes outside of Philly.  On my recent little trip to the U.S. Mint and the Penitentiary this was my last stop for the day and thankfully I didn’t have a lot of time to explore all the insects located inside.  As you can see from the above picture the outside of the building is decorated with some large cutouts and even a giant ant crawling up the wall.

Earlier this summer Hanna and I had visited a similar place called Insectropolis that was originally an exterminating service, and then must have used their clients bugs to start their museum.  This place is no different and you can see that they do also offer an exterminating service.

Upon entering the front door you are immediately placed in the gift shop that has all sorts of bug related merchandise.  I had been in the store for all of 3 seconds, did not see any live bugs running loose, but was still feeling like I was covered in bugs.  Wow I really needed to get a grip.

My biggest issues is with spiders.  The large picture you can see above was located on the wall just beside the penny machine.  I swear the spider was looking at me.

Feeling panic setting in quicker than I had anticipated I slowly moved towards the penny machine which was designed to look like a tree stump.  This was really a cool design and fit perfectly in this bug tortureland….uhh wonderland.

The four designs passed very nicely and the designs were simple but still a nice set.  The images included a Scorpion, Praying Mantis, Ant and Butterfly.  All of the pennies also had Insectarium printed across them.

As I was using the machine a nice lady that was sitting at the front desk asked if I wanted to go into the museum.  I confessed that I didn’t have much time, and had just stopped in to use the penny machine.  She insisted on handing me a bunch of flyers about the museum and encouraged me to come back as they had some great interactive exhibits.  This invitation did sound fun (Not really).  I thanked her and made my way back outside.  If you do want to visit the museum there is a small admission fee, or if you are like me and just want to stop by for the pennies there is no charge.  The people working there did seem really nice so I may suck it up and bring Hanna back to see the bugs.

With my quick trip to Philly done I headed home to catalogue my newest coin sets.  It took me two trip in but was able to visit all the machines and my Philly collection is now up to date for now.  Thankfully this hobby doesn’t stand still too long and I’m sure there will be new machines available next year.  That will just give me another excuse to come back and enjoy an authentic cheesesteak with a side of pressed pennies.

With Halloween only a few days away I thought I would review a place over in Philadelphia that gets a lot of visitors throughout the year, but around Halloween is when this place really gets crazy.  There are day time tours you can take, or for the really adventurous once it gets dark outside you can experience a ghost tour that I have heard it terrifying.  Who wouldn’t want to walk through the hallowed halls of an abandoned prison known as Eastern State Penitentiary.

I will admit I did not opt to go at night for the Terror Behind the Walls, but instead went in bright day light to hopefully ward off any spirits that may have wanted to see me screaming back out to my car.  As you can see from the pictures this place is plenty creepy during the day.

Eastern State was opened in 1829 and remained in operation until 1971.  The prison consisted of cell wings radiating in a full circle from a center tower where the prison could be kept under constant surveillance.   This design became known as the hub-and-spoke plan.

Originally the system of incarceration dubbed the “Pennsylvania system” encouraged separate confinement as a form of rehabilitation.  The prison had design aspects with religious inspiration, for example the halls were designed to have a feel of a church, and each cell had a single overhead skylight representing the “Eye of God”.  This was to suggest to the prisoners that God was always watching them.

The prison housed some famous criminals including bank robber Willie Sutton, and Al Capone who had a an unusually comfy looking cell (guess being a mob boss does pay off).

There was also an unusual story about a dog named Pep.  In 1924 Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot allegedly sentenced Pep “The Cat-Murdering Dog” to a life sentence at Eastern State.  The dog supposedly murdered the governor’s wife’s beloved cat.  Prison record reflect that Pep was assigned an inmate number (C2559) which is also seen in his mug shot.

After walking through some of the cell blocks, courtyard and having the hair on my neck stand on end the entire time I made my way back towards the entrance of the prison.  Down one of the hallways close to the exit you will find the Museum store.

As with any Museum gift shop there is all sorts of prison related souvenirs available including posters, t-shirts, hand cuffs and anything else you can image.  Among all these items was another reason I made the trip to the prison.

The four design penny machine seemed a little out-of-place among the prison walls.  I pressed each design without any issue, as I sometimes find these types of machines require a little extra arm strength to turn.

Each design had very nice detail and referenced the prisons famous history.  The images on each coin were: The main entrance to the prison with the year 1829-1971, Al Capone, The hub-and-spoke prison layout, and Pep the dog.

With the freshly pressed pennies in my pocket I quickly made my way out of the prison and back to my car.  It was early afternoon but I wasn’t sticking around until sundown when all the prison ghosts made their appearance.  Plus I had one other place to visit that was also going to leave me with a creepy feeling.

On my recent day trip with my daughter Hanna to Philadelphia one of the few places we weren’t able to visit was the U.S. Mint.  Technically we did try to go inside but found that the mint did not have any visiting hours on Sundays.  There were a couple other places we wanted to check out that day but just weren’t able to fit it all in.  Luckily however only a couple of weeks later I had a day off from work and was in the area for another appoint.  But I figured this was my chance to get to these last places on my list because as you may expect there were penny machines to be found.

I parked my car near the Independence Visitors Center which I had reviewed in a previous post you can see here.  This was a relatively inexpensive parking lot for center city, and after a short walk past the National Constitution Center I arrived at the U.S. Mint facility located in Philadelphia.

For those of you that may come here for a visit in the future please note that security is pretty tight here.  There is a scanning procedure much like you would find at the airport where you must empty your pockets of all metal objects and walk through a metal detector.  Also, this was a big one that I was informed of numerous times was that Photography and Videography is strictly prohibited.  I spoke to some people who had visited the mint in the past and said they had no issues taking pictures, so I don’t know if this is a new policy or not.  But the security guards did not look like they were in a forgiving mood when they were explaining this rules.  So being the good little visitor I am I didn’t take any pictures so this post will be pretty short.

The U.S. Mints largest facility is this one located in Philadelphia and this location was originally opened in 1968.  This is actually the fourth mint that has been located in Philadelphia.  The first was built in 1792 when Philly was still the U.S. Capital  and began operation in 1793 and was known as “Ye Olde Mint”.

After submitting to a body cavity search (just kidding, only the metal detector I promise) the first stop was actually the gift shop.  For any coin collector this is really a great place and has a wide range of proof coins available, books, collecting supplies and other unique coin related souvenirs.  Just outside the gift shop was where the pressed penny machine was located.

As I mentioned above I wasn’t able to take a picture of the machine myself.  I must say I really wanted to test my luck as I figured this machine didn’t have anything to do with the actual coin minting process which I assumed is what they are actually trying to protect.  But regardless my conscience got the best of me, and wasn’t up to spending the afternoon with Homeland Security just for taking a picture for the website.  Instead I have above the picture from pennycollector.com and I hope they don’t mind me using it so you can see what the machine looks like.  I must admit that the machine itself was really very nice.

Each penny pressed very nicely with only a slight extra curve to each coin, but that was easily corrected once I got home.  The four images available were: a Majestic Eagle with wings spread, Ye Ole Mint 1792-1833, Ben Franklin with the LOVE sign, and the Philadelphia Skyline.

Just around the corner from the Penny machine was the escalator that started the self-guided tour through the mint.  There was no admission for the tour and took about 30-45 minutes depending on whether you read every piece of material posted along the way.  This was a really nice tour and had a ton of information that to be honest mostly went over my head.  I’m just a simple man who likes to look at nice shiny new coins, but understanding a little bit more about the entire process makes collecting them that much more special.

I will admit that after watching all the work that goes into making coins (including the penny) I kind of feel bad about squashing them.  But I just kept telling myself that they did have a penny pressing machine located in their gift shop so they must be okay with it.

Stop one was done but after a quick walk back to my car I was off.  Who knows, if I did risk taking the picture of the machine inside the mint I may have gotten a free ride to my next destination.

It had been a long day and Hanna was quite the trooper.  We had visited numerous historical sites in downtown Philadelphia, but before heading home there was one last place to stop.  Located at Penn’s Landing was the Independence Seaport Museum.

It’s a museum dedicated to the maritime history of Philadelphia and other ports along the Delaware river.  There is a parking garage nearby but be aware it is pricey as they charge the same amount whether you are there for 5 minutes of the first 2 hours.  Usually this wouldn’t have been a big deal as I would enjoy spending quite a bit of time here, but since we had already had a big day I was just planning on stopping by for a quick visit.

The outside of the building has a fun nautical theme.  With your admission to the museum you can also access two vessels outside in the river.

In the above picture on the left is the WWII Submarine USS Becuna.  On the right is the Spanish-American war era Cruiser Olympia.  I have gone aboard on a past visit to the museum and these are really interesting to walk through an learn about their history.  Unfortunately this time around we were just here for the penny machine located inside the museum.

The last time I had visited the machine was located near the restrooms and is where I immediately headed to but it was nowhere to be found.  Hanna had already decided she wanted to check out the gift shop which ended up being where the machine was now located.

As pictures above the pennies pressed very nicely with only a bit of a short roll on one of them.  Each of the designs have Independence Seaport Museum displayed.  Forgive my nautical ignorance but I’m going to list the designs as simply: A Large Ship, Anchor, Sailor at the Helm, and the City of Brotherly Love.

We headed back to our car and Hanna pretty much fell asleep as soon as we got back on the highway.

It was a great day, Hanna and I had a lot of fun trekking all over Philly and collecting a whole batch of new coins for our collection.  We learned some things about American history, Dinosaurs and Science and hopefully gave Hanna a day to remember.

Finally we had made it to the big one.  This was the place that Hanna was most looking forward to, mostly because she just wants to run around like a maniac.  The Franklin Institute is a huge Science museum, and as I’m sure you can guess is named in honor of Benjamin Franklin.  It was founded in 1824 and is one of the oldest centers for science education in the United States.

We walked up the big set of stairs on the 20th street entrance and headed inside only to be greeted by Mr. Franklin himself.  Unfortunately it was only a huge marble statue but it was still nice to see him.

Beyond the statue we entered into the main atrium of the museum where we picked up our tickets, and also found the first set of penny machines.  The first machine we found was over by the elevators that took you to the parking garage.

However I should mention that this was actually not a penny machine.  If you click on the picture above you can view a full size version for more detail.  The machine actually had blank medallions that is supplies.  The instructions were pretty simple, use the handle to select the design you want, insert your $1 (per design), and then crank the handle until the pressed medallion dispenses at the bottom.  I will say it was nice not having to supply my own coin for once and they came out really bright and shiny.

These designs were listed as a limited edition which I would assume is because they listed the year 2015 on each of them.  But this also gives me hope that maybe these will be updated each year moving forward (fingers crossed).  The designs included: Electricity, Observatory, Your Brain, and The Train Factory.

Next we headed over towards the restrooms and found three more machines all right beside each other.  I always find when the machines are located near restrooms they are sometimes hard to used with so much traffic and people using them to lean against.  There were no different unfortunately but after a few minutes of excusing ourselves Hanna and I were able to press a set of each.

   

The first two machines were separated by a collectible token machine and an ATM machine.  They both pressed without any issue and were in nice working condition.

The first machine had a plain marquee on the top, but the bottom of the cabinet did have a zoomed in picture of one of the designs.  The images on each coin were: Benjamin Franklin, an Old Steam Engine, the Human Heart, and the Weather Center.

The next machine as you can see above had a nice American Flag theme to the cabinet.  The designs available in this machine were: The Fire Company Union, the Foucault Pendulum, Time Keepers, and the KidScience Logo.  A few feet to our left and we found the last machine in this area.

This machine also had the plain top marquee with the clear acrylic casing.  The bottom of the machine did say “Franklin Institute”.

This machine had designs of: The Human Heart, A Steam Engine, City of Brotherly Love, and Albert Einstein.

Just as a reminder, we hadn’t even gone into the museum exhibit areas yet.  All four of these machines were located in the main atrium and no admission was required to get them.  However there was one more machine lurking inside that you would need to pay to access.

With all the new sets of pennies stashed away we gave the attendant our tickets and headed towards the first set of exhibits.  This place is truly a science lovers dream, and has a lot of great interactive things for the kids and adults of all ages to enjoy.

Hanna found the giant human heart that you can walk through all the chambers and follow how blood flows through this amazing muscle.  There were sounds effects of blood pumping which Hanna wasn’t a fan of, but was fun walking through and taking in the detail of the model.

Eventually we worked our way into the Electricity section of the museum.  There were numerous activities helping to explain how electricity works.  Hanna had fun turning the handle and watching the light bulb light up.

We continued walking around the different areas of the museum and eventually made our way downstairs to the Space Command.  For anyone that enjoys outer space and astronauts this area would be for you.  As we rounded a corned to go into the next exhibit area we found the last penny machine.

This machine was nicely decorated with a Space themed cabinet, and the four designs were also themed accordingly.

As you can see from the above picture the designs are kind of a history of flight set: A Biplane, Space Module, Space Shuttle and a Delta Wing Jet.

After finishing our space mission we headed back upstairs and checked out the last few exhibits.  We began packing up all our things and headed outside to start walking back to our car.  Hanna was about ready to head home but we still had one last quick stop to make before our day was done.

After a short drive down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway we found a place to park that was closer to our final few destinations.  We took a little side trip to Logan Square and walked around the Swann Memorial Fountain.  By this time of day the temperature was in the mid seventies and we were just taking some time to enjoy the day outside.  There was actually a Polish-American parade taking place so we stood around and watched it pass us by for a little bit.  Once we had our fill we headed to one of my all time favorite types of museums.

The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University is the full title.  What can I say I’ve been fascinated with Dinosaurs since I was a kid.  This is listed as being the older Natural Science Museum in the world, it was founded way back in 1812.

We headed inside, paid our admission and started at the top floor so we could work our way back down.  They have 37 dioramas for viewing which are simply three-dimensional displays showing a wide variety of animals in their natural settings.  Back in the 1930’s and 40’s when most of these dioramas were first installed they provided generations of museum goers their only opportunity to experience distant places and exotic wildlife.

The only tip I would really give to anyone visiting this museum is to make sure you take a map from the admission desk.  There are some areas that you can only access by a specific elevator or staircase.  I’m always more of a fan when the layout flows more naturally and takes you through each area without having to backtrack.  We did find ourselves viewing the same areas a few different times when we tried to get from one area to another, but eventually we figured it out.  Saving the best for last we headed to the Mezzanine that gave a very cool overview of the Dinosaur Fossil area.

Up on the Mezzanine there were some interactive exhibits that Hanna had fun with.  We walked to the far side and came down the stairs so we were face to face with the Dino’s which I don’t think Hanna realized just how big they actually were.

She seemed didn’t mind the stationary fossils as much but there were a few that were animated and made some loud noises that she wasn’t a fan of.  We avoided those but enjoyed looking at the all different types of dinosaurs and of course we had to take a closer look at the T-Rex.

We headed back out towards the main entrance and headed into the gift shop.  Hanna wasn’t interested in any souvenirs so we headed just outside the store and found the penny machine.

This was another machine I had collected years ago.  The designs were still the same but the signage on the machine had been updated.

All four designs said “The Academy of Natural Sciences” and included images of: A Polar Bear, The T-Rex Fossil, a Butterfly, and a Cannon.  The machine pressed the coins without any issue.  I had decided to get an updated set on nice new coins since my originals had been pressed on old crappy pennies.

I managed to carry Hanna’s stroller down the front steps and back outside.  We headed back over to Logan Square as it was a bit of short cut to our next destination.

So far we had visited quite a few places and made great time.  But it was getting close to lunch time so I decided we would head a half-dozen blocks or so down Arch Street to the Reading Terminal Market.

This place is really cool.  It’s an enclosed indoor public market that has anything you could possibly want.  There is fresh produce, butchers, fresh seafood, spice merchants, florists and artisan cheeses.

For lunch we had a wide range of food counters serving everything from cheese steaks and roast pork sandwiches to Corned Beef and Philly’s famous Bassett’s Ice Cream.

Hanna picked out some chicken strips and french fries and I headed for a cheese steak. I’m Philly and should what the locals have.  With food on our tray we walked towards the back of the market where there are lots of tables and chairs setup for patrons to enjoy their food.  After eating we went to make a pit stop and lucked out in finding the next penny machine was right outside the restrooms.

I will admit this wasn’t a great location for the machine as it was a high traffic area and lots of people were using the machine to lean on but eventually we were able to press out coins.  I always find these types of machines a little hard to use, the handle is kind of low for me and I always need to kneel down to use it.  But with Hanna’s help we managed without any serious injury.

The four designs included: A Pig, The Liberty Bell, William Penn, and the Reading Terminal Market Logo.  A large crowd was starting to form but it wasn’t to use the machine so we packed up our stuff and headed out of the very busy market.  Once outside we headed back to where we had parked as we needed to drive a little more than I was willing to walk at that point to our next destination which I was sure Hanna was really going to be exited about.

A few blocks away from the Bourse Building we made it to Independence National Historical Park.  Just to give you an idea this was a really cool place to just stand and take in the history of where we were.  The first place we could see was Independence Hall.

This is where the United States Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution were debated and adopted.  The building was completed in 1753 and became the central meeting place for the Second Continental Congress from 1775 to 1783.  It was also the site of the Constitutional Convention in 1787.

I debated actually going inside for a tour but the line was long and we did have quite a few other places to visit so with a heavy heart we headed to our next stop.  Across the street from this amazing building was the Independence Visitors Center.

Inside you can book many different tours of the city, there are a few little coffee and snack shops and also a gift shop with all your constitution and independence memorabilia.  We walked about half way through the building and came to the next two penny machines on our trip.

   

Both machines looked almost brand new and cranked out some beautiful designs.  As you can see by the pictures above they also had a change machine located in between the machines for anyone that may need to load up on quarters.

The first machine had four designs that included: Independence Hall, Fightin’ Phils, LOVE, and the Rocky Balboa classic silhouette.

The second machine also had four designs: The Liberty Bell, Washington Crossing, Benjamin Franklin, and the Reading Terminal Market.

After pressing the coins Hanna took a quick picture with Pope Francis before we headed back outside.  Sorry I couldn’t resist, these cut out posters were everywhere after the Pope’s recent trip to Philadelphia.  As you can see Hanna was more interested in her donut than meeting the Pope so it was probably a good thing it was only a poster.

Once we were back outside we had a short walk across the park to the National Constitution Center.  Now I had written about these machines back on the 4th of July as a celebration of our Independence Day and you can read about it here.  However I did want to mention that even though the designs haven’t changed the machines have.

   

The machines are right inside the building near the gift shop.  There is no admission fee so you can use these machines for just the $0.51 per penny.  As you can see the machine cabinets have gone over a very nice update from the old plain marque designs I had seen a few years ago when I first pressed these designs.  Since the designs hadn’t changed I didn’t press a new set to try to conserve my coins for the last few places we still had planned to visit.