This weekend I'll be vaca-ing in D.C. and i hope to stop at the bureau of printing and engraving I cant wait to go has anyone else been there before? is there anything i should buy? and can i take stills or video? Thanks everyone
I would conact them ahead of time. Sometimes you have to have reservations for the tour, and sometimes you can just get tickets at the time of the tour. Play it safe and contact them. Most likely all photographs, still or video, will be prohibited. If it is like the Mint all electronic equipment such as cameras and cell phone are prohibited, and they do not have anyplace where you can store them or lock them up while you take the tour.
Contact them just to see if visitors/tours are allowed. The National Alert Status is up one level last I saw. That means acccess to some facilities is canceled/restricted.
There are a couple of people who have been to and reported back about their tours of the BEP in the last few months, just do a thread search. Here's one such: Anyone ever tour the BEP in DC? Also, you might consider that threads like this are best suited for CT's Paper Money forum. Make sure you filter your search for other threads by selecting to search only threads from that section of CT.
I was just there this past August, unfortunately they had some kind of private tour going on the day I wanted to go so it was closed to the public. After September 1 no advance tickets are needed, just walk up and get your tickets. Also forget about cameras, no pics allowed. Also make sure you put the Smithsonian's American History Museum on your itinerary, they have a most awesome coin collection.
Below is a CT thread with images and links to the Smithsonian's National Numismatic Collection Some nice pics from the Smithsonian coin collection!
