What's An Elongated Penny?

So basically they are just a fun thing if you happen to like the picture that has been stamped on them?

So ingenious.
Just to get this straight - the tourist supplies their own penny and does the manual work plus donates a dollar. Awesome.
I have seen elongated pennies but didn't know what the rolling machine looked like nor how it operated. Love it!

They are quite popular in the UK and Europe too, although not as common as in the USA. Here's a machine in Southampton, England, with the four pennies I got from it!

I've come across several penny-squashing machines in Australia. One, in Melbourne, was pre-loaded with American cents. The others all took bronze discs.

In the UK you can use British pennies quite legally in these machines. In Eurozone countries most machines take 5 euro cent coins, although some in Germany take 2c coins.

Closer images of the actual machine so you can get an idea how they work

this is a free standing manual machine


Side view of the working portion. You see the crank handle at the lower left. It turns the small gear which drives the large gear. The large gear is attached to the spindle that contains the design die. At the other end of the spindle is another small gear which drives a spindle below it which has a blank die. the two knobs at the top adjust the distance between the two die spindles.


In this image you can see the feed chute. You pull the slide out, put the coin in and push it forward so the dies can grab the coin and pull it through without getting you hands close to the rollers.


Here is an upper image of one that can either be hand cranked or electrically driven that shows what the spindle dies look like.


And here is a die sleeve that slips over the spindle and is locked in place with set screws. Note the large natch at the right hand edge of the die, this makes it easier for the roller to grab the coin and pull it through. Without that the leading edge might not grab the coin at first and be part way through the rotation before the coin gets pulled in resulting in an elongated coin with only part of the design on it.


(Actually I suspect this is a reversed image of a hub used for making duplicate roller dies. Note the missing beads at the bottom center. I think this is a hub and those beads have chipped off.)