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.