FAQ

The questions that arrive most often, answered once.

Is it legal to press a penny?

United States: yes. Federal law (Title 18, Section 331) prohibits mutilating coins with fraudulent intent. Pressing a penny into a souvenir involves no fraud, and the Treasury has long taken the position that the statute does not reach it. Pressed-coin machines have operated openly in national parks and federal museums for decades.

United Kingdom: yes. The same logic applies, and no, flattening the monarch's portrait is not an offense.

Canada: no. The Currency Act forbids melting, breaking up, or using current coins as anything other than currency without a license, and the Criminal Code makes defacing a current coin an offense regardless of intent. Canada stopped minting pennies in 2012, but the law still applies to them. Canadian machines press on blanks or foreign coins for this reason.

How do I pay?

It depends on the machine. Classic machines take coins, with the penny you supply as the one that gets pressed. The latest VENU+ machines take contactless payment, a tap of a card or phone, and press a copper blank the machine supplies, so you need nothing in your pocket. Each listing notes which kind it is when a collector has reported it.

The U.S. Mint stopped making pennies. Do the machines still work?

Yes. The last circulating cents were struck in November 2025, but pennies remain legal tender and there are billions in drawers and jars. Machines accept them as before, and a growing number of newer machines supply their own blank. Collectors who prefer solid copper are setting aside pre-1982 cents now, while they are still easy to find.

Why is there silver showing on the pressed penny?

That is zinc. Cents minted from 1982 onward are zinc with a thin copper plating, and the rollers split the plating and expose the core. It is harmless, but zinc tarnishes to a dark gray and does not polish well, which is why collectors prefer cents from 1982 and earlier. The Collecting 101 page has the full breakdown by year.

Can I use Canadian pennies?

Outside Canada, yes, and the pre-1997 ones press very well: they are about 98% copper. From 1997 the Royal Canadian Mint switched to copper-plated zinc and then to copper-plated steel, which press like modern U.S. cents. Do not try a loonie or any other non-round coin; it comes out short with part of the design missing.

How do I clean a penny that has already been pressed?

Gently, and without acid. The Cleaning page covers it, but the short version is warm soapy water, a soft toothbrush, and a pencil eraser for dark spots. The better answer is to clean the penny before pressing.

Why does the penny tarnish?

Copper reacts slowly with oxygen to form copper oxide, which darkens the surface. Given moisture and carbon dioxide it goes further and forms the green coating that colors the Statue of Liberty. Keeping the coin dry and sealed from the air stops it; the Storage page explains how.

What are the small letters and numbers on the design?

Near the catch notch on many pennies there is a short code. The letters identify the engraver: PC for PennyCollector, LE for Lodestar Entertainment (the company's earlier name), E for Eurolink. The number is the sequence in which that engraver produced the design. The first custom PennyCollector design, for SeaWorld, carries no number; Six Flags was 02, Universal 03, Busch Gardens 04, and so on.

Why is the design off-center, and why such a long tail?

Nothing was done wrong, and nothing can be done differently. The catch notch that grips the coin as it enters the rollers always sits at the left edge, so the left side of the design is always on the edge of the penny. The tail on the right depends on the pressure the machine is set to and on the metal: zinc is softer and stretches further than copper, and even two copper cents can differ. Collectors who like short tails use copper; those who like long tails use zinc. A design running off the end of the penny is a maintenance issue worth reporting.

Will a PennyCollector book turn my pennies green?

Very unlikely. The sleeves are tight so that air cannot reach the coins. In twenty years and hundreds of thousands of books, fewer than five reports of discolored coins have come in, and each traced to moisture. Dry the coins completely before they go in, keep the book somewhere dry, and if a coin ever does change color it comes out and cleans up.

Why are my pennies curved?

Collectors call the S-bend potato-chipping. It comes from how a particular die design takes the metal, and copper does it more than zinc. A gentle press between the fingers after rolling straightens most of them.

A machine has moved, broken, or disappeared. What now?

Send a report. A volunteer checks it and updates the listing, and the machine stays on the record with its status marked rather than being deleted. Collectors have relied on that since 2005: knowing a machine used to be somewhere is often as useful as knowing where it is now.