Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Coined at the Museum

Do you have a coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Well an update to the squished, pressed, or elongated coins. Apparently there are three machines in the American Museum of Natural History each with four designs.

The first four located inside the first floor gift shop includes the following design.

It depicts the museum itself, next a barosaurus, then a tyrannosaurs rex skull, and finally a stegosaurus skeleton.

The second four are located outside the first floor museum gift shop.

The first is early man, the next is an American Indian ornate canoe/kayak, two bears, and finally The Rose Center for Earth and Space.

Most of the images are from their dioramas, permanent exhibits, or the buildings themselves.

Again the value of each is about $0.50 which is also their price.

There are four more from the the machine outside the Dinostore located upstairs but I will get those on another day. For some reason I really like these coins, which is strange since I usually don't like altered coins.

Do you have a coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Why the long face?

Do you have a coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

I got this coin from the gift shop at American Museum of Natural History(AMNH). The Canadian cent next to it is just a change find.
And the opposite side.
You can see traces of the Lincoln Memorial on the reverse side.

These elongated coins are common around tourist area but this is the first time I know that the AMNH has been doing this. In their gift shop is a machine where you pay 51 cents to get that penny squished as it passes 8 times around and one of four museum designs is pressed onto the coin.

Other places in New York City that this can be done is the Central Park Zoo or The Bronx Zoo and a few other tourist traps.

Book value has them at $0.50 and up. It is perfectly legal to flatten US coins but it can't be used again as money. The first US elongated coin was made at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, these will bring a higher value. Most now are common especially in penny form but nickel, dime, quarter, half dollar, and dollars exist. I've heard rumors of gold pieces but never seen one.

Type/Company: 1 Cent(Elongated)/American Museum of Natural History
Year: Unknown(elongated-2007, coin-post 1982)
Mintage: Unknown(Began week of May 13, 2007)
Metal: 0.8% copper, 99.2% zinc
Value: $0.50

Type/Country: 1 Cent/Canada
Year: 2001
Mintage: 919,358,000
Metal: Copper Plated Zinc
Value: $0.10 in MS-60 or less

Do you have a coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.