The Souvenir Penny Addiction

So, I just got back from vacation in Boston. When my mom and I were planning this trip, she asked me where I wanted to go and I said Boston, firstly because of the history and stuff, and, secondly, because there are a lot of souvenir penny machines in Boston. I considered other cities, but the only other city with as many penny machines, within driving distance that is, was Washington D.C. Luckily, I've already planned a Washington penny mission. Besides, one of the Boston penny machines had JFK's face as one of the designs, and, since I'm starting a 'famous American politicians' penny collection (it's a sub-collection of my original collection), I had to go get it. As you can probably guess, I have a slight souvenir penny obsession.

It all started two years ago. I was at Busch Gardens in Virginia Beach, on a school trip, when I stumbled upon a souvenir penny machine. After I begged quarters off of all my friends, I ended up with like four souvenir pennies. At that time, I thought the souvenir penny was just a Busch Gardens thing. Then, about a month later, I was in Gettysburg when I found another penny machine. That was when I realized that souvenir pennies were all around me, all I had to do was find them.

That was the beginning of the end.

The problem with souvenir pennies is that each one costs 50 cents to make, or 51 cents, if you consider that by flattening the penny, you're destroying its monetary value. Now, that doesn't seem like a lot of money, but, when you consider that there are thousands of penny machines in the world and each machine can have as many as four designs and each design costs 51 cents, that means you're spending...well, I'm not sure how much you're spending because I'm not very good at math, but it's a lot of money. It's even more money if you consider that you have to pay admission to get into a lot of the places where the machines are actually located. It's a bit of a problem for me. My only consolation is that if someday, as John Green has suggested is inevitable, the penny is abolished, my collection might be worth something - not that I would sell it.

You see, once I start collecting something, I can't stop. It doesn't even matter if you like the design on the penny. Like, when I was in the aquarium in Boston, I got a penny with an octopus on it. You know how I feel about the octopus. On this trip alone, I got thirteen pennies. Do you think I got 13 pennies because I liked the designs? No, it's the principle of the thing.

I take great pride in planning my life around penny machine locations. I used to have to guess about penny machine locations, but, fortunately, I recently discovered that pennycollector.com has detailed lists of all the penny machines in the world! Like, did you know that there's a penny machine in the Altoona Curve museum? I've lived down the road from Altoona all my life and I've never had any inclination to visit it. Until now.

Excuse me while I drive over to Altoona.

Just sayin'