Today, on a visit to the town of Nijar, about 50minutes drive away, I saw my first ever machine in South Spain for elongating a coin. It was outside a pottery shop. In this case it took a 5 Euro cent piece and there were 4 designs to choose from. I chose a gecko which you see all the time here. I don´t know where they got the machine, but it impresses the word Salamander on it, Next was the symbol for Almeria, the province in which I live and work. It is called the Indalo, after the rock painting discovered inside a cave and was dated to the late Paleothlithic era, 12,000 BC. Lastly, a Pita tree. The spiky green branches at the base were for many uses. Up until 100 or so years ago, Almeria had a plantation of 30,000 acres of these, which only take 10 years to mature. They seed themselves so they were a continuous supply. First the leaves were squeezed for the liquid to make Tequila. Secondly, the leaves are fibrous and when separated into strands form what is called sisal. When dried and weaved together, they supplied the shipping industry for all the ropes. The pulp of the left over skin of the leaves was boiled and the resulting liquid was sweet to the taste and used as a sweetening agent. Thanks for looking and reading
Nice. I saw an elongating machine in Nazare, Portugal on a visit this year. It also took a 5 euro cent coin.
Hey! Nice coins! Here is an excellent link for machine locations here in the States and Internationally. PennyCollector.com - The official website for elongated pennies, penny books and penny machines
Cool. I try and keep a few pre1982 pennies with me on trips in the US just in case I find one of these machines.
I remember using an elongating machine somewhere in Europe, pretty sure it was Amsterdam. The 5 euro cent was a much better host coin than a US cent and it came out really nice.
One of these machines would have made a great scene in the movie Brewsters Millions. Right around the time he sends the post card in the mail using an Inverted Jenny, he goes into a prestigious coin shop, buys up a hand full of ultra rare coins such as a few of each: the 1955 Doubled Penny, 1916 D Dime, 1943 Copper Penny and the small date 1982 D non-zinc penny. The scene shifts showing him at Coney Island sending each one of those coins through the coin masher and then handing them out to a small energetic crowd of little kids and parents who are watching. I have a feeling that if China had been reproducing these errors back then when this movie was being produced like they do now, the producers of the film would have had the prop coins readily available for such a scene.
