While the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition is not common fodder for pundits and comedians on late-night TV shows, all that changed on the evening of March 11, 2026, when the host of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert took on the great Chicago World’s Fair.

The U.S. Mint struck its last circulating pennies back in November 2025. We noted the event with a little history about the premiere of elongated coin machines at the 1893 World’s Fair (and a low-tech approach even earlier). [See “Pennies Crushed as Souvenirs of the 1893 World’s Fair” https://worldsfairchicago1893.com/2025/11/14/pennies-crushed-as-souvenirs-of-the-1893-worlds-fair/] Mr. Colbert joined in the cause of remembering the 1893 invention. After reminding his audience about the demise of the one-cent coin, he lamented:

“No one seems to be talking about the biggest loss of all, and that’s the penny-press machine—an American institution. You want memories? You want excitement? Well, for just 51 cents, you could have an oblong, flattened memento.”

“Penny presses were introduced at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893, which sounds dull today,” he quipped, “but in the nineteenth century the only two pastimes were pressing pennies or delicately coughing blood into a kerchief.” Ouch!

Watch the segment here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuGXoOhjZDk

An example of an elongated penny from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. [Public Domain image from Wikipedia.]