Elongated Coin - Process

Process

An early and common method of coin elongation was smashing pennies by leaving them on a railroad track. When a train rolls over a penny, the force is sufficient to cause plastic deformation that flattens and stretches it into an oval, showing only the faintest trace of the original design. Some early railroad flattened cents were then hand engraved with the date and location.

Modern elongated coins are created by inserting a standard, small denomination coin into a small rolling mill consisting of two steel rollers pressed against each other with sufficient force to deform the coin. One of the rollers (called the "die") is engraved with a design that imprints a new image into the metal as the coin passes through it. The resulting coin is oval-shaped and shows a design corresponding to the design on the die in the mill.

Throughout the history of the production of elongated coins, various methods have been used to engrave the design into the roller. Early elongateds were hand engraved with burin gravers, and some are still engraved using this method. More popular modern and contemporary methods include etching, pantograph engraving, and engraving using electric or air-powered rotary tools.

In America, cents are most commonly used in these vending machines, as they are thin, easy to emboss, and are the smallest denomination of American money (Most machines charge $.50 in addition to the cent rolled). Less common are machines that press designs into quarters, dimes, and nickels.

Read more about this topic:  Elongated Coin

Famous quotes containing the word process:

    I wish to see, in process of disappearing, that only thing which ever could bring this nation to civil war.
    Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)

    Rules and particular inferences alike are justified by being brought into agreement with each other. A rule is amended if it yields an inference we are unwilling to accept; an inference is rejected if it violates a rule we are unwilling to amend. The process of justification is the delicate one of making mutual adjustments between rules and accepted inferences; and in the agreement achieved lies the only justification needed for either.
    Nelson Goodman (b. 1906)

    Consumer wants can have bizarre, frivolous, or even immoral origins, and an admirable case can still be made for a society that seeks to satisfy them. But the case cannot stand if it is the process of satisfying wants that creates the wants.
    John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)