Museum’s pennies feed collectors’ fever

Published 9:00 pm Monday, June 13, 2005

Let’s play a little quiz today. There is only one of these in all of Snohomish County. Tourists come from near and far to use it. It spits out something that may be passed from generation to generation. You can call them elongated, smashed, pressed, stretched, squished or rolled.

Those were good clues, but you’ll never guess. I’m talking about the penny-smashing machine found inside Imagine Children’s Museum at 1502 Wall St. in Everett.

I collect elongated pennies and even thought about getting a machine placed as a side business at the Everett Events Center or Tulalip Casino. Those clever folks at the museum beat me to the punch.

The fun hobby is enhanced because at pennycollector.com on the Internet, lists of machines are noted around the world, from Norway to the Cayman Islands. We take printouts on vacations and have hunted down penny machines in Leavenworth, Las Vegas and Grand Coulee Dam.

My dear friend, Patti Wright from Lynnwood, turned me on to the hobby.

“I am an avid Pez collector,” she said. “About five years ago a friend of mine got me a squished penny from California that had a Pez dispenser on it. Then a few years ago I was at Pike Place Market in Seattle and there was a penny machine there, so I got those.”

When Wright was at the Baltimore Aquarium, she found machines lined up in a row.

“I just had to have them,” she said. “All of them. Then at the American History Museum in Washington DC, another machine. The Air and Space Museum, another machine. In Louisiana at the Alligator Farm, another machine.”

By the time she got to New Orleans, she was a squished-penny addict. I was with her in New Orleans, and the bug hit me.

When you get souvenir pennies, you can place them in Passport Books to keep forever. At only 51 cents per penny, it’s an inexpensive hobby. When you spy a machine, you put your own shiny penny in the slot, plus two quarters, then spin a big wheel, usually, to get the imprinted penny. For instance, at Safeco Field, you get a Safeco penny.

When we discovered there was a machine in Everett, Wright and I met for lunch, then visited the museum to buy the three kinds in the machine representing exhibits.

My granddaughter is only 8 months old, so we haven’t been to the museum for a family outing. Let me say, it’s a treasure for children and adults alike. I can’t wait to take Kelbi Lynne very soon.

The placement of the penny machine is adorable, inside a vault, where children can imagine they are working at a bank drive-up window.

Imagine Children’s Museum Director Nancy Johnson said the penny machine gives visitors a collectible to take away from the museum.

“It’s a little nostalgic,” Johnson said. “It’s a collection that’s not expensive.”

To fill our passport books, Wright and I did a quick Seattle tour one Saturday afternoon. We found penny machines inside basement shops we never would have visited. At the Space Needle, I was surprised to find a squished quarter machine.

I drew the line, and didn’t buy smashed quarters. Although maybe someone should install a pressed quarter machine somewhere in Snohomish County.

Columnist Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451 or oharran@heraldnet.com.