Birbla

Join the discussion

Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.

Sign in
  • Hacker News
  • I'm much more interested in the metal typer(?) -- machines that have a custom medallion in them and you get to stamp a message into their circumference letter by letter. Is there any map that lists those?
    by gcanyon
  • You don't see a lot of sites that use a window.alert() to tell you to sign up like that... would love an about us to know who had the passion to make this.
    by niwtsol
  • If you are into the ones at Walt Disney World, https://www.presscoins.com/
    by bnycum
  • Does anyone know how to get a "good" penny for these machines? Often mine are hard to interpret when they're done and just look like a garbled mess. Do I need a penny that is sufficiently old or what
    by xgulfie
  • There used to be one at the museum of natural history in NYC, where if you didn't have the supplies you could pay a dollar to get 4 quarters to activate the machine and a penny to squish. It was a legit infinite money bug in the real world :-)
    by foobarian
  • This reminds me so deeply of the "old" internet that I can't help but want to get into penny pressing machines just for the sake of wanting to find this website useful to me. Just someone with a passion, cataloging it and sharing it with everyone else with no other ulterior motives.
    by stonedivot
  • Are these a thing outside the US?

    For anyone who's not familiar: all over the place at tourist attractions and airports you can find mechanical presses that will squish a penny with an embossed image. You pick one of 4 images, put in your penny + a couple of quarters and then turn a big crank handle until your newly pressed penny comes out the other side. You'd then collect squished pennies in a little collector's folio/pouch/thing for later viewing.

    I guess now that pennies are getting phased out they'll have to "upgrade" the machines to work with other coins...

    by wasmperson
  • I love penny smashers. I have a paradoxical attitude toward souvenirs: on one hand, I like to have reminders of places I've visited as well as a physical token of "proof" that I've been there; on the other hand, I hate household clutter and don't like to spend money on what amounts to junk. Penny smashers fill a perfect role. They are literally a token of proof that I've been to a place, while also taking up almost no space and being very cheap.
    by SyzygyRhythm

Explore Birbla archives