Alex's Souvenir Penny Belt

  

Every year when our family went on vacation, starting when our youngest son, Alex, was about four years old, he would ask for a penny to put through those smashing machines that flatten the penny out and leave an impression of the attraction. 

 You know the ones I'm talking about?  

 For example, when we went to Disneyland, he would put a penny through a machine and get an image of Gepetto on the penny.  When we visited the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, he put a penny through the machine and got an image of the Space Shuttle on a penny.   Year after year, whever we went, Alex would smash pennies and hoard them in his pockets.  I wasn't sure many of them even made it home from the trips,

but Alex had a plan.

Of course I didn't know what his plan was, but once I decided to get him a 'smashed penny" wallet to store all those artifacts in - yes, they actually make a wallet just for those elongated pennies!  He stored them in the wallet and when I asked, " How many do you have now?"  He would just answer "not enough"!  We often wondered when he would have"enough" since each penny cost 51 cents to flatten!!

Fast forward to last week when Alex, now 21 years old and home from college for an internship this summer, came out of his room and guess what was in his hands?  Yep!  all those pennies!  I was shocked!  "You actually knew where all those pennies were?"  He confessed he lost track of them for a while but found them in his closet and was laying them out on the kitchen table.  I'm sure some were lost to one of those mad room cleaning sessions when company were coming and the three boys virtually just threw everything that was on the floor away! Then Alex took off the belt he was wearing and laid them out on the belt and announced, "I have enough!"  The pennies had to be laid on an angle in order to fit the width of the leather.  He started counting the rivets on his belt and then tried to take them off.  It wasn't working, so he grabbed his keys and tore out the door and said "Be right back!"

It's pretty hard to 'be right back' when you live 20 miles from any store!  He got back quickly and went to work.  He took a leather punch and punched holes in one inch increments along each side of the new belt he bought.  Then he asked to use my Dremel to drill holes into both ends of each penny. 

 Alex is very goal oriented and wasn't going to do anything else until his belt was finished.  Soon, I heard the rhythmic tapping of the hammer outside as he was riveting each penny to the new belt and before the sun went down, he had finished! 

He brought in the belt and showed me his creation.

 As I looked at the belt, we reminisced about each of our trips, such as the Sacramento Zoo,  he chose to record on a penny.  

 Pretty ingenious I'd say!

I scoured the internet and found other penny projects, like this bracelet . . .

 . . .and even a souvenir penny toilet seat(!) made with penny souvenirs on this website.

 . . .but couldn't find another souvenir penny belt. I think he should submit it!  

 There is not another belt like it on the planet - 

a one-of-a-kind creation Alex will cherish for a lifetime!