They are encased coins that were used as advertising purposes. The first encased lucky cents were made for the pan pacific expo in the early 1900’s, with the most being produced in the mid 50,s to advertise business. Most were inscribed with “keep me for good luck” or “keep me and never go broke” and would be used as “good for tokens” with the presentation of the piece. Here’s a photo of a more uncommon pocket mirror lucky cent.
When I was a kid in the 50's on the boardwalk in Ocean City, Maryland, some of the penny arcades had machines that enabled you to make your own encased cent with your name on it.
Can't find any. The most recent person I know of that has had encased coins made is Steve Ellsworth of Butternut coins. He had encased large cents made. You might try contacting him and see where he had them made. Kelly Finnegan of Penny Press Mint that used to make them still appears to have a profile on Linkedin listing him as President but I don't have an account there so can't contact him. I've also dropped a line to Bryan Ryker, who is a specialist on encased coins, to see if he knows anyone.
Those used to be quite the rageS I remember my granddaddy having one with a wheat cent in it. I was jealous and wanted that wheat cent as a kid..... I don’t know that I have seen any that had been manufactured beyond maybe the early 1960’s or so.
Weirdo??? Nope, no pet rocks for me..... There were some cool collector coins entombed in those good luck tokens.
These are fantastic, I’ve yet to encounter a “bottle cap” lucky cent. Very neat. Thanks for the welcome!
Got a reply back from Bryan Ryker Vintage Coin Concepts (This may also be 1997collectibles4u on ebay) https://ruefish.com/exposure-coins Actually both of these appear to be selling recently made encasements (at way too high a mark up) but I doubt they are making them themselves. You might try contacting them though and they might be able to give you a lead.