You’d be hard pressed to find a less expensive souvenir in the shops of Disneyland than a flattened penny.

Pressed penny machines take a regular penny and squash it between two special plates, each with a special design - Splash Mountain for example, or a character like Mickey.  The Disneyland pressed pennies typically have a desigon on the back (although not always), while Walt Disney World pressed pennies are typically one sided.

 Pressed pennies generally cost just $0.51 each (two quarters plus the penny to be pressed) - a price hard to be beat.  Combine that with the seemingly endless variety, spaced throughout the park, and collecting pressed pennies is something you might want to look into.

Town Hall has a one page, two sided sheet with a listing of all of the available pressed pennies from Disneyland, and on the other side those from Disney’s California Adventure.

Like pin trading, collecting pressed pennies is something that you can do between your run from Space Mountain to Splash Mountain - break up the walk by stopping in to a shop that your list tells you might have another pressed penny you don’t have.

There are enough pressed pennies with unique designs that it’s not easy to get them all in one trip.  Budget your collection over several trips, adding more and more to your collection.  There’s no need to get them all at once, or even to get them all ever!  But collecting pressed pennies is a great activity to add to your Disneyland “Must Dos”.  It’s a relatively inexpensive way to buy souvenirs, and there’s enough variety to keep it interesting.

Some shops sell pressed penny albums, and it’s a popular enough hobby that there are outside providers of pressed penny albums as well.