Episode notes
Alex Schmidt, Katie Goldin, and special guest Jamie Loftus explore why pressed pennies are secretly incredibly fascinating.
***SIF members get a special digital art poster, to celebrate 300 episodes! Find it in your BoCo: https://maximumfun.org/howtoboco/
LINKS FOR JAMIE LOFTUS:
- Jamie’s website
- Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs by Jamie Loftus
- ‘The Bechdel Cast’ podcast
- Secretly Incredibly Fascinating: Tires
LINKS FOR KATIE GOLDIN:
- Katie Goldin on Bluesky
- @ProBirdRights on Bluesky
- ‘Creature Feature’ podcast (iHeartRadio)
- When Is a Bird a ‘Birb’? An Extremely Important Guide (Audubon)
RESOURCES USED TO INFORM THE EPISODE’S LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
- native-land.ca
- U.S. Department Of Arts And Culture
- The True Native New Yorkers Can Never Truly Reclaim Their Homeland (Smithsonian)
- “Finding Lenapehoking” (YouTube / Hudson River Maritime Museum)
- Why Do They Call It Beacon? (The Highlands Current)
- Dutch & Native American Heritage In The Hudson River Valley (National Park Service)
RESEARCH SOURCES:
- Legal Information Institute: “18 U.S. Code § 331 – Mutilation, diminution, and falsification of coins” (Cornell Law School)
- Flat-Line Time for the Squished Penny Museum (The Washington Post)
- Weekend Edition: “Squished Penny Museum” (NPR)
- Largest collection of elongated coins (Guinness Book of World Records)
- PennyCollector.com entries for Nevada machine locations and Netherlands machine locations
- Souvenir-Prägungen entry for Baden-Württemberg, Blaubeuren, Blautopf
- The Blautopf — Blaubeuren, Germany (Atlas Obscura)
- Penny Pinching: A History of Coin Elongation Machines (Mental Floss)
- The Start of a New Collectible (American Numismatic Association)
- Pennies Crushed as Souvenirs of the 1893 World’s Fair (WorldsFairChicago1893.com)
- The First Elongated Coin Souvenirs in America were at Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. (Digital Research Library of Illinois History)
- The U.S. used to have half-pennies. (HistoryFacts.com)
- Hamilton thought half cent necessary (Numismatic News)
- U.S. Coins: Half Cents (GreatAmericanCoinCompany.com)
- Common cents: US Mint to press its final penny (The Guardian)
- Manitoba: Canada’s last penny minted (CBC News)
- Whatever happened to the penny? A history of our one-cent coin. (Bank of Canada Museum)
- Goodbye to 1 and 2 cent coins? (Numismatic News)
- EU to Ban Privacy Coins, Anonymous Accounts and Cap Cash at €10,000 by July 2027 (Yahoo! Finance)
- European Union to ban cash payments above €10,000 (The Portugal News)
- Pressed Pennies: A Beginner’s Guide (TouringPlans.com)
- Unintended consequences (CoinsBlog.ws)
- How the Alchemist of New England Became a Legendary Counterfeiter (Atlas Obscura)
- The Pittsburgh Post Archive: Sunday, April 16, 1893 (Newspapers.com)
- The Krupp Horizontal Sliding-Wedge Breechblock (U.S. Naval Institute)
- The Not-So-Mighty Bismarck (U.S. Naval Institute)
- Dr. Christopher S. Baird: How does a penny left on the track derail a train? (West Texas A&M University)
- The penny is dead. Long live the penny press. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)
- In Canada, find a penny, recycle it (PBS News Hour)
- Ten Years After: The Legacy of the Penny (Royal Canadian Mint)
- Will the death of the penny kill the beloved elongated souvenir? (TheHill.com)
- The penny press is here to stay coin collectors, manufacturers say (USA Today)
- Secretly Incredibly Fascinating: The Dollar Sign
In this episode...
Guests
- Jamie Loftus
About the show
A weekly podcast about the history, science, lore and surprises that make everyday things secretly incredibly fascinating. Hosted by comedy writer, emoji creator, and ‘Jeopardy!‘ champion Alex Schmidt. Join Alex & his co-host Katie Goldin for a joyful deep dive into seeing the world a whole new way!
Get in touch with the show
@sifpod
@sifpod
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How to listen
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