Pressed Pennies from Tokyo Disneyland Park make a fun collection as well as a very large collection if you wish. The TDL collection outline talks a bit about this set, the graphical pressed penny collection guide shows how it relates to the rest of the Disneyland coins, and provide a quick overview. So, if you wish to specialize and collect only these medals or a collect all the pressed souvenirs from all the Disney Resorts in the world, it can be a lot of fun!

We believe these ParkPennies Tokyo Disneyland Resort reference guides to be the complete and definative¹ listing of every Tokyo Disneyland Resort pressed souvenir issued over the first fifteen years² of Tokyo Disneyland Resort and Hotel "pressed pennies". The 15 years from 1996 to 2011 include the early years when only ParkPennies.com kept records up through the years when TDR "pressed penny" guides started to be kept online by very capable collectors in Japan. "Early" or "Classic" pressed penny souvenirs were cataloged as they were placed onstage by the folks at ParkPennies, Robert and Anastasia Hoff. A difficult task especially over the first 10 years or so. However, with the help of fellow collectors both in Japan and the United States, this guide has been both compiled and vetted over the years. And as you can see, the medal souvenirs are divided into several sections and some sections are again divided into several pages for specialized collecting and easier attribution. Combined, ParkPennies guides feature all known on-stage Tokyo Disneyland Resort issues as well as key prototype coins issued from the first day penny press machines were placed in Tokyo Disneyland through the 15th year. The main guide sections include the TDL guide, which includes medals pressed inside the gates of Tokyo Disneyland Park, TDR guide, which includes medals pressed in the Tokyo Disneyland Resort, but outside the gates of Tokyo Disneyland, the TDS guide, which includes medals pressed inside the newer gate of the Tokyo DisneySea Park, the TDRB guide covering the medals enclosed in the Penny Collecting Books, the TDRP guide featuring the prototype coins treasured by advanced collectors, and two Indexes, the Variations Index displays pictures linked to detail close-up pages for attribution of similar coins, and the COM page which is dedicated to the cool Coins of the Month that are currently issued at both Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea.

Can you believe when we started this project, there were only about a dozen Tokyo Disneyland Resort coins in total!? Around the turn of the 21st century, the number of coins issued each year began growing rapidly. From just a hand full of new coins each year to hundreds. Thankfully at that time, Kuniaki Hiraki developed web site that has benefited from his extensive knowledge of the near by Tokyo Disneyland Resort and his love of the pressed penny hobby. Listings, images, and numbering consistent with the ParkPennies guides are updated regularly for the rapidly expanding number of TDR issued coins at his English Language TDR Medals web site.

Although these Tokyo Disneyland Resort medal souvenirs are often referred to as "pressed pennies", "pressed nickels" in Japan and even "elongated coins" by some collectors, no coins were injured in their production. Tokyo Disneyland Resort Souvenir Medals are made by pressing vended planchets, also known as flans, disks, blanks, or slugs. These blanks or planchets provide a very clean, high quality Japanese elongated souvenir. They are all equal in size and appearance, and do not suffer as much from maintenance issues, governmental changes, or regulations. The vending location can also easily change the "color" of the "coins" for different events etc. At the same time, planchets also provide an enhanced level of "seigniorage" or coin pressing profits for the location owner when compared to the use of coins found in circulation which are typically pressed and then returned to the customer rather than kept by the vendor. The blank medal planchets are held inside the penny press, and then pressed to order for the collector. Other common names for these souvenirs are flattened pennies, crushed pennies, squashed pennies, rolled pennies, mashed pennies, smashed pennies, stamped pennies, squished pennies, smushed pennies, stretched pennies, memory pennies, and keepsake pennies... or just fun! :-)

The planchets used on property at The Tokyo Disneyland Resort to make "pressed pennies" are metal disks are about the size of a US nickel or Euro five-cent piece. In the park, to this date, only two kinds of planchets have been used. One standard type planchet or blank is made of solid, bare copper and the other standard type, which has not been seen much since around 2006, is also solid copper, but, with a chrome or nickel plating. In Japan, some collectors call them by the names of "penny" and "nickel" because of their color, maybe also because of the nostalgia of United States pressed coins. However, no real US or Japanese minted coins are actually pressed in the machines as they are currently in the United States. (Note: "Off-denomination" elongated coins such as United States five cent pieces (real nickels) and United States one cent pieces (real pennies) known to have been pressed on Tokyo Disneyland Resort coin dies, are not currently listed in this guide. But, are known to exist in small numbers.)     Happy Collecting, Boomer

¹ Some dies, exhibiting very slight variations and known to have been onstage, are listed here also. However, not every die exhibiting a very slight variation will likely ever be discovered or listed in any guide. "Off-planchet" and "off-denomination" elongated coins such as United States five cent pieces (real nickels) and United States one cent pieces (real pennies) known to have been pressed on Tokyo Disneyland Resort coin dies, are not currently listed in this guide. Although very unlikely, if any reader has possession of a coin from this time period that is not listed in these guides, they may have it included here in our guides, with credit to them for their discovery, by contacting ParkPennies.com.
² Kuniaki Hiraki's web site in Japan offers a very timely and complete guide to coins beyond the first 15 years including the standard collector guide numbers with web sites in both Japanese and English. Kuniaki's contributions to the hobby are most generous. We hope you will support his efforts.

Tokyo Disneyland Park 15TH ANNIVERSARY, 1ST SEASON Type II Pressed NICKEL Guide No. TDL9818_T2
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