Penny Pinching: A History of Coin Elongation Machines

(via mental_floss)  Visitors to the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago had an opportunity to see a lot of new ideas for the first time.  But the one attraction visitors couldn’t get enough of was the penny press machine. For a nickel, a press operator would accept a coin, stick it between two industrial-strength rollers exerting tons of pressure, and apply a hand crank. Out would come the new oval shape bearing the stamp embossed by a mold on one of the rollers: “Columbian Exposition 1893.”