I started focusing my inventory effort on the foreign coins. Maybe it’s because they don’t fall nicely into the 50 states system, I’ve always had a hard time getting worked up about organizing them. It’s a horrible laps of judgment (yes, a long, 10 year laps), as these are probably the hardest ECs to replace.
First thing I did was start making tags for the locations.
I used Post-Its before, but quarter sized note cards seem to be sturdier.
Sorted out the coins that Austin pressed for me in Budapest years ago. I always assumed that since the coins came from the same trip, they must have been from the same location. As it turned out, two were from St. Stephen Basilica while the other was from Buda Castle.
It was surprising to find that the majority of my Israel coins were not cataloged. Most were nicely labeled and just needed to be scanned in. Even more confusing were the South African ECs, which have been in my possession for as long as I can remember, yet were not documented anywhere.
Back on the domestic side, I updated the trade list with a few Washington DC coins, left over from earlier request when I was going to DC more regularly for penny pressing trips. There are a few Smithsonian museums I’ve yet to visit, such as the Castle, the Museum of American History, and the Museum of American Art. I’ll start tackling the ECs Jennifer and Adam pressed for me next, as soon as I find them among the unpacked boxes.
Wow, has it really been so long since my last post? Shortly after the October post, I fell into deep depression over the state of my apartment. Note to all serious collectors: Do not move into a basement apartment with slow Internet connection, it’s detrimental to your hobby, among other things.
I just moved out and had my first house warming party, so I figure I should celebrate on getting a grip on the mess I left behind.
Special thanks to all those who visited my site during my long absence. Special special thanks to Jennifer and Adam, who’ve been sending me coins continuously.
What Happened in Savannah
I did end up going to Savannah, but didn’t exactly return with 32 pennies. Some of the designs were not working, plus I don’t remember where I packed all my coins. They’ll turn up eventually.
New ECs from Dockside Seafood Restaurant Savannah, GA
Hey! It’s been a while.
I’ve been preoccupied with moving for the past few weeks. Now I’m finally at my new location, yet all my coins are still boxed up 
Jennifer got me a set of ECs on her vacation in Ithaca, but I won’t be able to scan them in until I find the box which they’re packed into.
Updated some information on EC cleaning and location mapping. Feel free to comment if I posted any misinformation.
Because I’m the only one manning (or womanning, if you would) this page, I make A LOT of mistakes. One of these mistakes is not knowing that Akismet blocks valid comments…
I’m thrilled whenever people leave comments. Consequently, I’m really upset when comments go unanswered due to my stupidity. This post is to answer Brown’s request on expanding the Coding, etc. post.
If you were asking about the Trade List coding, here is the source code.
If you were talking about the EC Information page (which I think you were), I wrote a few more paragraphs here.
I’d like to separate these pages out, but I’m having a hard time correcting the WordPress header… In the meanwhile, if you find some links missing, it’s because I’m messing around the page.
Was messing around with the trade list code for a little bit. I think I finally got the everything to list properly, not that anyone will notice.
Also added an Information page! I hope to develop this to a full guide at a later time, but for now, just some trivial notes on the hobby.
Jason accompanied me to the Human-Computer Interaction International 2009 conference in San Diego. We were able to visit many San Diego locations during conference breaks and pressed a total of 59 coins! Some are redundant though, since it’s difficult to keep track of which San Diego Zoo coins I possess already.
Made some changes to the Old Town store names and added new coins to the trade list.
Moved location at Inka’s Art San Diego, CA
New ECs from Old Town Alley Shop San Diego, CA
New EC from Cafe Coyote San Diego, CA
New ECs from Old Town Market San Diego, CA
Remaining San Diego Zoo coins to come…
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
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.
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.
