Machines to create elongated coins (sometimes called stretched, pressed or squashed coins) can be found in hundreds of places with dies celebrating a multitude of events.
Elongated coins are produced by a roller die using a coin (usually a cent), token or medal as a planchet. The original design or designs are flattened or obliterated and replaced with new designs formed by a die.
"Both theoretically and technically, they are true numismatic items, being 'coined' commemorative medals, produced on planchets which are true government specie. They can be collected by types, varieties, geographic location, planchets, dates or events," writes Dottie Dow in The Elongated Collector.
According to Dow, the "result is similar to what might happen if you used a rolling pin into which a design had been carved and rolled it over a disc of cookie dough. The design would be transferred to the dough and the disc would be elongated in the direction the rolling pin was moving."
Lee Martin in Today's Elongateds likens the elongating process to his grandfather's day when a coin was placed on a streetcar track or railroad tracks.
"When Lincoln's funeral procession made its long tour throughout this nation, mournful citizens placed coins on the railroad tracks and kept them as souvenirs. This is perhaps the largest instance of creating elongated coins. Today, the San Francisco trolley cars are still a source of flattened coins," Martin wrote in 1974.
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THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION in 1893 was the site of the release of the first attributable elongated coin.
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The first attributable elongated coin was made at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, according to Dow.
Rolling mills, however, date back in time to thousands of years, writes Angelo Rosato in Encyclopedia of the Modern Elongated. The machines have been utilized for manufacturing brass wire, decorative objects, organ pipes, coins, food-serving dishes and jewelry, and for processing corn and sugar cane.
Coin-rolling mills for making elongates are easily-operated compound machines with few components.
A lever attached to a wheel and axle operates gear wheels that turn the rollers. Dies are inserted into the rollers. Messages are generally formed on the coin's obverse and the coin's original design, albeit stretched, is the reverse.
According to Rosato: "A coin, usually a cent, is positioned between two rotating roller shafts and emerges flattened, thinner, extended and elliptical in shape. … When operational, in rotating motion, the unit will produce an embossed die image on the protracted coin."
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A LINCOLN CENT is the coin of choice for most elongates. This elongated created by The Elongated Collectors in 1981 marks the 15th anniversary at the American Numismatic Association convention in New Orleans.
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Rosato states that no single element is more important than the next on a coin-rolling mill. Hand mills have four primary elements – double housing frames; upper and lower roller shafts that usually measure 2 to 4 inches in diameter and 2 to 6 inches in width; a main spur gear; and propel handle.
Electrically powered machines would have most of the same parts, but the elongating process is driven by an electric motor and not by hand-operated lever or crank handle. Martin states that not all machines are alike. Some have single dies while others create two-sided designs with a pair of dies. The die or dies create raised images. A coin will receive a right-reading design under extreme pressure as it passes through the dies.
Dow writes that "in designing a die to produce elongated coins, the amount of pressure to produce the design is calculated and from this the length of the coin is determined. The die is then engraved to take all of the variables into consideration. If no definite border is to appear on the coin, the calculations don't have to be exact. If the design is deeply engraved and it does have a border then a problem exists for the engraver."
According to the Web site www.pressedpenny.com, dies are made by either engraving or etching a mirror image into a round steel cylinder that functions as the die. There may be from one to four designs per die. For dies produced by etching, art is usually produced on paper and then reduced with a camera. The camera film is then used to photo-etch the design onto a hardened steel roll. This step uses some form of acid. The etching is then deepened by hand engraving techniques.
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THE LORD'S PRAYER was the most popular die design subject of the 1930s on elongated coins.
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"Other dies are engraved by hand," states pressedpenny.com.
Five things must be considered in producing elongated coins, according to Dow: the machines used; production of the steel cylinder on which the die is engraved; the engraving; wages of the person to operate the machine; and the booth or rental space of the affair. (This consideration is only applicable to elongates produced at conventions and at museums or commercial sites visited by the public; space may not be an issue when one operates an elongating business.)
Roller speed at the entrance zone is less than at the exit zone. Rosato explains: "The original thickness of the coin is 'rolled' down to the thickness of approximately one-half in a single rolling operation. The peripheral velocity of the roller and rolling die is generally constant; provided the machine is powered other than manually. However, owning to the continuity of the coin's thickness, the roller speed velocity at the entrance zone is less than the exit zone."
The standard length of elongated coins is left to the discretion of the roller producer. Rosato writes that examples have been recorded as short as 25 millimeters to as long as 60 millimeters. The average length is 32 to 37 millimeters.
Martin notes that elongates tend to vary due to variables of dies, planchet size and image size.
"Elongated coins are perfect testimonials to the creativity of individuals who generally make the coins to express a thought rather than in anticipation of profits."
The cost of the presses and dies, Martin writes, can be high.
A glance at Internet Web sites reveals that hand-cranked elongate presses can cost from $2,500 to $3,500, while one electric press costs $5,000. Dies can cost $350.
"The cost of producing dies by any process is one of the reasons why elongateds so quickly force a roller to change businesses if the roller anticipates selling elongateds as a livelihood," according to Martin.
Luck "E" Penney's Hitchhiker's Guide to Elongated Coins at www.wcmassey.com lists information about presses throughout the United States. Transaction prices range from 50 cents to $1, plus one has to provide a cent as a planchet. This guide lists locations of presses and the costs to use them. Die designs are limited only by the creator's imagination. Rosato states that the Lord's Prayer was the most popular in the 1930s with more than 200 different die design varieties and about nine basic different word versions listed.
