Florida Guide > Miscellaneous
Pressed Pennies/Quarters at DownTown Disney
There are many souvenirs you can choose from at Walt Disney World, these range from the free ones, like guide maps, to very expensive limited edition figurines and sketches.
The souvenirs that our girls started collecting when they were only 2 and 4 years old were the Pressed Pennies and Pressed Quarters. They were too young to read and these were more fun and easier to collect than autographs. I also found this great because while they were locating the machines and doing their pressing with their grandparents it gave me time to shop!
You can pick up a pressed penny locator list at guest relations at each park. The list will tell you where the machines are and describe the presses as well. There is also a Master list for all of Walt Disney World machines but I believe you can only get a copy of this at Hollywood Studios.
The machines are located in all the parks including the water parks and are also the resort hotels, Contemporary Resort, Coronado Springs and Grand Floridian, as well as Wide World of Sport and Downtown Disney.
The Souvenir Pressed Coin Machines will imprint a design (press) on a penny for two quarters (51 cents total) or on a quarter for four quarters ($1. 25 total). Our girls originally pressed pennies but as they become older have graduated onto quarters. These are probably one of the least expensive souvenirs, unless you want to collect all of them!
Most theme park gift shops and other shopping locations sell books specifically designed to hold your newly pressed coins. The book sells for about $7.
Pennies from the parks have the park name on it, while those from other places, resorts, Downtown Disney etc are clean.
Some presses are commemorative and available only for a short period of time. When we were there earlier this year there were presses that honoured the 100 years celebration. Our coins over the years tell the story of Disney.
Some people prefer to use older pennies in the pressed penny machines. Starting in the middle of 1982, the US Mint switched from copper pennies to zinc pennies with a thin layer of copper. When you put these pennies through the pressed penny machine, you get a kind of marbled appearance with the zinc sometimes showing through. Although one of the girls always tried to use these older pennies the other one loved the shiny new pennies, so part of our holiday was always spent searching for the right pennies!
Of course now they have gone onto quarters. Granddad thinks that if you put the quarter to the far left in the machine it tends to be better pressed than the others, I don’t know if he is right.
If you have young children try these presses they have given us hours of fun over the years.
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