Flat pennys

[Fat]

Do not do this. Big trouble. Leave my name out.
these were done with tape to hold from jiggling off rail.
if you want one twice as flat, smear generous dollop of grease on track, place penny in the middle of.
please dont do this and if you do, remember to, leave my name out of it...

[clovisoid]

I never knew the grease trick, but someone who looks a lot like me, might have done that a lot as a kid growing up... Didn't use the tape either, just put them on the shiney spots in tracks and over a couple of days of replacing them a couple would get flattened. I'm sure if I were to metal detect that area, I'd find a bunch of 1970's and 80's pennies, and probably some from previous generations of kids who did it.

Tape seems like such easy way of doing it. I remember one kid tried it with nickels, but lost the nickels so no one ever went that rich again.

[Hal Gorges]

Only tried it one time with a nickel, I guess it’s still out there somewhere...

[Ron Kelley]

Copper is softer and works best. Someone told me that. :-)

[antmike915]

My friends and I tried it a few times when we were kids with pennies, quarters, dimes and nickles (never with half dollars, silver dollars or Susan B Anthony's), even combinations sitting side by side on the tracks ( which looked wierd). There was this old railroad crossing bridge going over the Chattahoochee River connecting Columbus Georgia with Phenix City Alabama and on the Columbus side at the start of the bridge you could actually lean against the rails as the trains go by (back against the rails) and the train would only be a foot from you as it went by. We did that once and I swore to never even consider doing that again, bright ideas from the youthful mind 🙂.

[paohrocks]

Better than putting old refrigerators on the train tracks like we did in college...

[tomclark]

....or a snowman taken from the box freezer and put out for the bus in the middle of the road in August...

[chase]

As a kid we would look for the flat pennies that other kids placed and lost after they had fell off the tracks

[willjo]

looks like the pennies you put in the machines in the parks to press a design in them and flatten them, never live close enough to a train track to think of that.

[beatup1354]

Ahh childhood fun , remember it well

[Lindenmeier-Man]

We did that a couple times back then, we were po though. Anyway we got to looking for sulfur chunks, and coal. We’d melt the smaller chunks of sulfur , that fascinated all us guys. I hate that they don’t have a caboose anymore, that was the most important car to me....I even remember seeing hobo’s , always wished I had one of their modified nickels ...

[Fat]

I have seen an old riding lawnmower get completely destroyed. I think I could find a piece of it today.

[Benji]

Yep....i remember "seeing" that done....good times...never thought about refrigerator or a riding lawnmower 🤣.....i have seen what itd do to a delorean....back to the future part 3

[LithicLady]

i admit....i'm the "tourist" that collects the ones from the penny presses at tourist locations......(yes, i even have the little book they go in! lol)....but i can admit it will remind me where i've been when i get "old".....

[Mattern]

Okay everyone, I looked it up. No one will ever come and arrest you for flattening pennies! I did it myself when young. Kim

[oldrocks2]

Back in the 50s when they made real caps we would tape a whole roll on the edge of the rails. Not a lot of pop but smoke was cool. was fun being a kid.