On one of my frequent trips between MI and MD, I took a detour to Cacapon Lodge at Cacapon Resort State Park.
It was Sunday night when I drove into Berkeley Springs, WV. I figured that since the machine was in a lodge, it must be open 24-7. The park actually closes at 10PM, and it was 9:30PM when I got to the gates. I have no doubt that it’s a beautiful park, but at night, the Cacapon was incredibly creepy. Past the gates, the road winds through a forest of trees. It reminded me of the scene where Snow White was running away from the evil stepmother.
The fun didn’t end when the pennies were pressed. When I got home, I realized that it was impossible to tell what the initials on the coins were.
If you look at a vertical coin, the initials look like “CZC”
If you look at a horizontal coin, the initials look like “UNU”
The jury’s not out on this one, but you can see for yourself here:
New ECs from Cacapon Resort Lodge Berkeley Springs, WV
Once in a while, I go through my “Box of Lost ECs,” trying to find where these coins were pressed so I can log them into the database.
I had this Bass Pro Shop EC for a long time, and I never thought I’d find where it was pressed. There are so many Bass Pro Shops all over the country, each of them having their own machine. It wasn’t until I perused through all the designs did I realize that many of the Bass Pro Shop ECs are unique. Of course, many locations have the logo design and some of the leaping deer or walking bear imagines overlap. But most shops have special imagines designed specifically for that location. For example, the Bossier City in Louisiana has a Mardi Gras design. I also learned from this search that my Cincinnati Bass Pro Shop ECs have been removed.
New EC from Ports of Call Santa Cruz, CA
New EC from Bass Pro Shop Springfield, MO
Since we’re on the topic (we’re always on the press penny topic), I’d like to share a recent punctuation discovery.
The apostrophe is only used to note possessives of nouns. Therefore, EC’s is not grammatically correct for noting multiple press pennies. I made many of these mistakes before 
I’ll leave them to note progress.
Next thing I want to find out is where the comma goes: before or after the parenthesis?
I’ve been traveling between Maryland and Michigan. Usually I pick up coins along the way; travel plazas, Cabelas, or local restaurants. I was looking at places where I could have missed when I spotted that Cumberland listed a local that is just off the highway.
I got this coin from the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad. Hopefully I’ll pick up the coin from Hagerstown next time.
I also see a flaw in the new Trade List coding. It’s always harder with Washington DC… The way I had it arranged that it’s both a state and the only city. However, I’ll have to put in special output code so the bullets will be lined up.
New EC from the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad Cumberland, MD
Scott took half a day off to see an Orioles game. Minutes before he left the office, I suddenly remembered that there may be penny machines at the stadium. There is a 4-die machine at the Camden Yards and my colleagues helped me gathered a few copper pennies for Scott to take with him.
This morning, I found four new ECs on my desk 
Special thanks to Belinda and Scott for the Camden Yards pennies!
I was invited to attend a conference held in Washington DC last week. When I browsed through the agenda, I saw that the last night’s reception is held at the Newseum.
What luck! The Newseum has been on my list of problematic locations. The admission cost is $20 and one of the machines is said to be located inside the museum. $20 is a lot to pay for access to any penny machine, and I never found a way around it till now.
It was a lively party and parts of the museum was closed off. The machine was sitting outside of the gift shop on the second floor. I had to run to the neighboring restaurant in order to get enough quarters, but I got my pennies in the end 
New EC’s from Newseum Washington DC
I still have a set of Israelis EC’s to scan, but I stashed them away somewhere and they are not to be found
Right now, I’m working on improving the trade list. Not its contents, but its looks. I hope to get a nesting bullet format, but I think there’s a bug in my code.
I’m looking up some of these coins from Israel and I don’t think I have the right location. For example, Google Map shows nothing of “Center of Town.” Even if there is a location by that name, and the coins were pressed from there, what type of place is it? Is it an attraction, an amusement park, a landmark, or just a retail store?
New EC’s from Center of Town Jerusalem, Israel
Over the Christmas holidays, I bought a bunch of coins from Israel.
They took months to arrive, but when they did, I had no time to scan and upload the pictures.
Now I’m slowly setting up the site for these additions. Now “Israel” is listed in the Image Gallery, but there are SQL error messages since I haven’t setup the districts yet.
There are 6 districts: Central, Haifa, Jerusalem, Northern, Southern, and Tel Aviv. It’ll take some time to figure out which city belongs to which district and create the appropriate pages for them.
Stay tuned.
I traded some of the Gettysburg coins previously. Living close by now allows me to fill the rest of the set. Both sets from the American Civil War Museum and the Old Gettysburg Village are completed on this trip.
When I got to Old Gettysburg Village, I found a hand cranked penny machine with only 3 designs. The last space where a design should be had an oval sticker with a question mark on it. I’m not sure if it was a marketing trick, but I guess it worked. Had I seen the design, I wouldn’t have pressed it since it was the coin that I owned already.
New EC’s from Old Gettysburg Village Gettysburg, PA
New EC’s from American Civil Warm Museum Gettysburg, PA
New EC from Turning Point Gettysburg, PA
New EC from Jennie Wade House Gettysburg, PA
The next coin from the Gettysburg trip:
New EC from the Antique Center of Gettysburg Gettysburg, PA
