I got a Facebook page!
Why? I’m not quite sure, but my web hosting company said I should… Now there’s an added component of confusion. Before, I had to think of what to post on here. With the added page on FB, should I just double post everything?? I kind of wish I talked to someone who’s more tech savvy first. But it’s awesome to know that there are people who Likes my site 
Anything that gets me motivated to press more coins and include more update is a good thing. I should have set that as a New Year resolution: introduce a dozen new pennies by post each week.
Here are the contributions of the day - New ECs from Smithsonian National Museum of American History Washington DC
I’ve lived near the District for a few years now, but the American History Museum was closed for renovation when I fist moved here. Last year, I finally visited to see the Julia Child exhibit after reading Julie and Julia (her kitchen was larger than mine…)
New ECs from Union Station Washington DC
So far the trip’s been terrific.
I didn’t do a bit of research before coming here, but I’m pleasantly surprised by all that’s in central London. Everything’s so ornate. It’s almost impossible to imagine the man power and money that went into the construction.
We were walking by Parliament and the Big Ben to get to Westminster Abbey. People put tremendous thoughts into each brick and it feels like I can just stand there and stare at the wall all day. The Abbey is even more fantastic. Even kings and queens had to claw a few square inches for entombment. When we got to the Victoria and Albert Museum, there were statues, among other royal knick knacks, pouring out the doors. Many of them monuments designed to be in the Abbey.
Now for what we actually care about - pennies! (or… here they call them pence.)
I pressed 8 coins at the London Eye (missed one machine), 4 coins at the Tower, 8 coins at Kew Garden, and 2 coins at Harrods. Harrods has replaced the die to 2011 and the machine at the pet shop was broken. I don’t know how many times we’ve passed by the London Bridge Experience or the Tower Bridge Experience, but never had a chance to press the coins.
Coin pressing is an expensive business in London. Each costs one pound, which is close to $2. That’s crazy!! The most expensive EC in America is only $1, and those are only in national museums where the admissions are free. I think it has something to do with the pound coins being widely used here. Personally, I find these coins precious, using both meaning of the word - they are much more likable than our Sacagawea and, obviously, are worth more in the International market. Anyway, I’m still hopeful to find a 50 pence machine somewhere in the city.
I’m heading to London next weekend.
My family’s been planning this trip for a while and I’ve known that there are penny machines in the city forever, still it came as a surprise how absolutely unprepared I still am. Where are these places? What type of coins do they use? Should I write down some addresses? Does it matter since I’ll have no idea where I’m at half of the time anyway?
Since I’ll be there for over a week, I guess there will be time enough to figure out the tube system, draw a traveling salesman map, and collect change from a bank.
All over Taipei, there are advertisement for the 2010 International Flora Exposition.
My trip coincide with the opening day and I got some ECs from the shows. There are some characters developed for the Expo, but I can’t tell apart from the other on the coins.
New ECs from Yuan Shan Expo Showroom Taipei, Taiwan
I know I’m missing coins from this set. Not surprising since I sent everyone in every direction, pressing whatever they can find. Hopefully I’ll be able to get more details later.
I also got a key chain that holds a single EC, designed as the Expo logo.
The material is made of soft rubber and there is a groove inside the oval opening so the coin easily fits inside the key chain, covering the boarder.
I started mentioning the Thailand trip a couple of weeks ago. Now I’m finally putting up the scans of the bounty 
Jason’s been pressing coins for me all over for months now, from Seattle to Monterey. Before I landed in Bangkok, he’s already got this set of Museum Siam coins ready for me!
New ECs from Museum Siam Bangkok, Thailand
I didn’t crack the spine of a single tour book before landing in Bangkok, so it was a bit of a miracle that I saw anything other than the landing strip in Thailand.
Jason arranged for us to stay at Arun Residence during the first couple of days.
It’s a small inn with around half a dozen rooms, a few restaurants/bars, and a gift shop that never seems to be open… We had a great view of Wat Arun though. Museum Siam is close by the hotel.
I arrived around midnight, therefore missed the first evening’s event where Jason went to see a game of Thai boxing. The next morning, we set out to see the Grand Temple. Our visit was at the tail end of the rainy season. I purchased an umbrella on my first day but, luckily, never had a chance to use it.
This is also where the Emerald Buddha is housed.
Next we visited Wat Pho
One place Jason was really keen on was the Oriental. It’s the second hotel we stayed at and it’s absolutely amazing. Upon check in, we were shown into a suite fancier than any model home I’ve visited. A man introduced himself as the floor’s head butler, presented his card, and asked us not to hesitate to call on him or his staff for any needs. I must say we abused this privilege quite often (from peeling exotic fruits to taking group photos… I pressed the butler call button for a lot of things…)
If you’re interested, I can forward you our itinerary, which includes a lot of other places and night activities we went through on this trip.
I also have an extra EC from the Museum Siam for trade. Please take a look at the trade list, newly improved with shorter run time by Joey!
I’m in Taiwan right now, taking an extended vacation to visit family and friends. Before landing in Taipei, some friends and I attended a wedding in Thailand. Life works in mysterious ways; who knew being in Bangkok for a few days would make such a difference to this site.
In addition to the Thai ECs Jason pressed me (to be scanned, cataloged, and presented here once I get back to the States), I met Joey who is helping me improving the site’s mechanics.
One of the suggestions he had was to add link tags to the EC images. I don’t know why I never thought of it before, it makes so much sense. I was constantly doing “right click” - “view image” before.
We’re also talking through the trade list page. Right now, I have a setup so that the number of trades is within the EC table. So, for example, the first thing on the trade list is from Rawhide. Therefore, EC #22 has a “1″ in the trading field, indicating that I have one coin for trade.
Anyway, this makes little sense since I do not have extras for trade for the majority of my coins. In addition, when I have multiple coins for trade, they may be different (i.e. one coin may be pressed on zinc while the other pressed on copper). So the logical thing to do would be to delete the trade field and create a separate trade table that points back to the main EC table. So… tblTrade #1 will point to tblEC #22. Here’s the thing though… when I trade a coin, I would have to manually delete an entry in tblTrade… Does that make sense…?
My friend Jason came to visit over the weekend. In the past year, he’s been calling every time he sees a penny machine and he finally got the chance to give me everything he rolled, which is over a few dozen coins.
I need to back track and scan in the other ones that were already taking up all of my desk space… Also, I need to pay better attention to my grammar when blogging. One of these days, I’m going to hire an English major to go through all of my posts. The cost of being a sloppy writer.
New EC from Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden Richmond, VA
I remember this coin vividly. It took me a whole 10 minutes to convince the garden attendants to walk in without admission, just for using the machine allegedly in the Children’s Garden.
I was pretty proud, walking back to the car. But Suhail said I should be grateful that these people are willing to make such concession and take the trouble of walking with me through the garden. He’s absolutely right. And for those who are thinking about going to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, don’t bother paying admissions for the machine, it’s broken and stored in the back room.
New EC from Children’s Museum of Richmond Richmond, VA
The machine is in the lobby…
New EC from the Science Museum of Virginia Richmond, VA
Right next door to the Children’s Museum
New EC from the Gateway Travel Plaza Breezewood, PA
Keith, Suhail, and I paid a visit to Westinghouse on behave of the client. On the way back to the office, I saw the humongous rest station that is the Gateway and instinctively said, “I need to go, there’s a machine in there.”
I knew I was right because I actually smashed coins here before, but I have no idea why I don’t have this coin in the collection already.
New ECs from Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World Dania Beach, FL
These were pressed on the AHFE 2010 Conference. Harry and I presented our paper and spent the rest of the time visiting Miami sites.
The BPS was on the way to the airport.
Suhail, Yucif, and I drove down to Richmond for the regional North American Young Generation in Nuclear (NA-YGN) conference in June. One of the trends we’re seeing lately is weekend events. This conference was held on a Saturday and the last plant tour I took was also on an off day. Probably has something to do with the economy.
Speaking of the economy, penny press prices are raising.
The machine at the Children’s Museum of Richmond costs 75c per coin. This machine at the Science Museum of Virginia, located inside the museum but within steps of the gift shop entrance, takes only dollar bills.
There were much debate over the raising cost of the hobby. Personally, I don’t mind it much. If all machines cost $1, that means my existing collection is also worth more. The part which I don’t care for is the preloaded pennies. It’s probably good business practice to load the machines with “bright new pennies”, as indicated, but I want my ECs pressed on copper. It takes a lot of effort to explain to other collectors that a certain design is “zinc only.”
I’m lucky to be traveling with friends who understand the craziness of this hobby. In addition to the museums, we also visited the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden (machine found to be in the back room and broken) and Maymont Park (drove around for half an hour and couldn’t find the entrance to the Visitor Center). We even stopped at the Bass Pro Shops in Ashland on the way back.
New ECs from Bass Pro Shops Ashland, VA
My work schedule allowed me to take the Friday before Memorial weekend off, combined with Memorial Day was a pretty rare stretch of hours that could have been spent away from the office. Unfortunately, I had to work Friday and Monday anyway… so I thought about sticking around town, maybe visiting my sister on Saturday or Sunday.
In great contrast, my friend and colleague, Suhail planned to take full advantage of the holiday. Speaking to him on Thursday, he was going to Kings Dominion, Six Flags, Ocean City, and Long Island, all in the same weekend. I excitedly handed him a list of penny locations at Six Flags Great Adventure, along with a box of clean copper pennies and $30. He came back with 3 coins out of the 20 or so 3-die machines at the park… Oh well, boys will be boys.
New ECs from Six Flags Great American Jackson, NJ (thanks Suhail!)
Suhail invited me and a few friends to Ocean City.
I’m not a beachcomber. I wither when temperature is above 73F, hate sea water in my hair, and require two types of sunblock just to step outdoors (100+ SPF on my face and neck and 5 SPF everywhere else). But those two days were so much fun.
May 30th was the Ocean City Power Boat Race. We strolled along the boardwalk until the water was cleared, then took turns dipping and tanning at the beach. Seafood was a must for every meal; I ate enough lobster to last me through the century. Suhail then suggested parasailing for the next morning.
That was the highlight of the trip. We went up to 800ft (for $60 per person, which was a steal.) The view was incredible, it felt like we were in a whole other atmosphere. Of course, right after a certain height, I started wondering why I didn’t bother testing the harness or asking our guides for certification and years of experience. That feeling was mutually shared by all our shipmates once they were airborne.
We got around to a few machines, but I’ll definitely have to come back for a complete set. One of the barista mentioned a machine in the arcade that wasn’t listed in PennyCollector. However, we were illegally parked by a hotel and I couldn’t stay long enough to hunt for the alleged penny.
New EC from Sportland Arcade Ocean City, MD
(Remaining scans to come…)
A few trades to be tagged along in this post:
New EC from Texas Motor Speedway Fort Worth, TX (traded with Robert)
New ECs from Mazama Campground Store Crater Lake, OR (traded with Mia)
I was offered an opportunity to tour Three Mile Island Unit 2 after working in the nuclear industry for close to 10 years. It’s one of those things which I can speak intelligently about it (”yeah, a PORV stuck open”) but I never thought I would be able to visit the site in person.
From left to right: me, Gail, and Dana, at the TMI-2 Control Room
Although the site is located near Middletown, PA, it was close enough to Harrisburg for me to collect all the local ECs.
New ECs from Bass Pro Shops Harrisburg, PA
New ECs from PA Turnpike - Highspire Service Plaza Harrisburg, PA
New ECs from Whitaker Center of Science and the Arts Harrisburg, PA
