I had already planned to do this, but it has unsettling timing with Japan suffering a 7.1 earthquake on Thursday, in the same region as last month’s devastating one. Japan still needs help.
My friend Clovia is donating money to Japan through Pennies for Japan, which is designs (Hamsa, Tree of Life, and Lady Uzume) pressed onto pre-1982 elongated pennies. I received mine earlier this week, and the pictures seriously don’t do the real thing justice. They are beautiful. Clovia is also able to drill and cord them, so they can be worn as well, if you like. I’m wearing my Tree of Life penny to work today. They also come with little notecards which explain the designs. If you don’t want to open an Etsy account and have a PayPal account, Clovia will do a direct purchase through Paypal. Payment is sent to clovis at coppercamel dot com.
(I attempted to take pictures of mine, but the camera on my phone didn’t like that.)
Her website is The Copper Camel, with a link to her Etsy store on the main page (I’ve included a sample link to one of them). Clovia also does custom work, some of which I’m already eyeing some stuff for next Christmas. They’re definitely worth checking out.
To use Clovia’s own words (a little paraphrased): She’ll trade you some shiny for a good deed.
(And believe me, they are shiny. Wonderfully shiny.)
Helen Corcoran 
Thanks so much for the shout-out, lady 🙂 They are devilish hard to photograph, aren’t they?
I have a substantial stock of these pressed, so the Japan sets will be available for the foreseeable future.