ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS ST. LOUIS ELONGATED CENTS

Grip the handle and turn the crank. Watch the roller turn. Wait for that clink, reach into the little door. Turn over the still-warm, copper-colored oval in your palm. Smile. • It’s a pretty penny. • Better known as a smashed penny, or, as collectors call it, an “elongated coin.” • You probably have a few in the bottom of a junk drawer or coin jar. • Your kids have probably spotted a machine at a zoo or museum and begged you to make one. • Dig them out and look at them carefully. Did you make a memory, too?

“There’s lots of things you can buy that won’t last. These things are made to be permanent,” said Charlie Blair of Granite City, whose collection of 4,000 to 5,000 coins includes favorites he and his daughter Faith, 15, have collected from zoos around the country. They first started collecting when they went to the St. Louis Zoo for a field trip when she was in first grade.

“There’s a lot of artwork that goes into it — and the detail you can get on some of these. It’s a neat, inexpensive hobby.”

The methods haven’t changed much over the years: you put your coin into a machine equipped with two steel rollers. The rollers press against one another with such force to smash the coin. One of the rollers is engraved with a die that presses a design onto the coin.

The St. Louis Zoo has 14 machines on the grounds, and two make special, larger medallions. They’re state-of-the-art machines from a vendor called the Penny Men, and you can pay for your pennies with unsmashable currency: a credit card or Apple pay. Some machines will provide a penny to smash if you don’t have one in your wallet or pocket.

Ryan Jeffery, director of visitor services at the zoo, said the machines have made $222,000 in gross revenue since they started using the vendor in March 2016. “This is big money,” he said, “and it takes no effort whatsoever to do. I wish that all parts of my job were this easy.”

The zoo will sometimes make suggestions for new penny designs, such as a grizzly bear for Grizzly Ridge, a new habitat which opened in the fall. The gift shops also sell holders for the coins, like special rubber bracelets and keychains.

To read the complete article, see:
Smash a penny, pick it up: Elongated coin machines make memories (http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/smash-a-penny-pick-it-up-elongated-coin-machines-make/article_40aa8598-b007-5cfd-a9b5-0fa557db2956.html)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web