Penny Drop Game

Penny Drop is a wooden dice game where each player races to get rid of their pennies. Each player starts the game with twelve pennies. On your turn, roll the wooden die at least once. Rolling a 1 through 5 places one penny into the matching numbered slot on the board if the slot is open. Rolling a 6 drops one penny into the box, out of play and out of your hand. After a safe roll, you choose to push your luck and roll again or pass to the next player. If the slot you roll into is already full, you take every penny currently sitting in the numbered slots and your turn ends. First player to empty their twelve pennies wins. A full game runs five to twenty minutes depending on the player count and how brave the table is.

No. Pennies are NOT included. This is the question we get more than any other, so we are putting it large here. Players supply their own pennies, twelve per player. Any penny-sized token works if you would rather not use coins. Nickels do not fit the penny editions in this collection. The slots are sized to the smaller penny diameter on purpose. If you specifically want a nickel-slot bar game, that is a different SKU: see Nickel Drop.

The Penny Drop family is a set of size and material variants on the same core game. Nine customer-facing editions today: Penny Drop Mini ($13.95), smallest format, pocket-size. The Classic Penny Drop ($13.95), our basic entry point with simpler materials at a simpler price. Penny Drop Travel ($17.95), compact 5.5 x 2.3 x 1.8 in, raintree wood box and lid with a laser-engraved wooden penny on the top, storage for the die and coins inside. Penny Drop Game Medium ($19.95), our most-shipped middle size at 5.5 x 2.4 x 2.25 in, raintree box and maple top. Penny Drop Artisan ($24.95), rubberwood travel edition between Mini and Travel in size. Penny Drop II ($29.95), maple top with a lift-off cover that opens the entire board, 6 x 2.5 x 2.7 in. Original Penny Drop Premium ($29.95), cherry top, sliding lid that doubles as the play handle with a wooden penny set in as the grip, 6 x 2.4 x 2.5 in. This is the flagship and the best seller. Authentic Penny Drop Game Gift Set ($50.90), the Original Penny Drop Premium paired with the Penny Drop Medium, packaged together as a gift set. Penny Drop Giant Poker Chip Edition ($51.95), bar-scale at 11.25 x 4.5 x 4 in, plays with poker chips. If you are buying your first Penny Drop and you want the canonical piece, the Original Penny Drop Premium is where we point people. For a desk piece or a travel gift, the Medium and the Travel are the most common picks.

Penny Drop the game was invented and first sold July 1, 2015 by Dave Janelle, the founder of Creative Crafthouse, in our family workshop in Hudson, Florida. Penny Drop is a U.S. registered trademark owned by Dave Janelle and used exclusively by Creative Crafthouse (USPTO Reg. No. 5,480,890, registered May 29, 2018, Principal Register, International Class 28 for dice games; Serial No. 87-661,532, filed October 26, 2017). We are the original maker, and Dave holds the mark. Most of the Penny Drop variants you see on third-party marketplaces are imitations of our piece, factory-made and packaged with printed plastic dice. Our die is a wooden cube with the dot patterns cut into the wood and hand-painted. We laser-cut and laser-engrave the lid on every Penny Drop in our own shop, and hand-finish each piece before it ships. The wood grain on your lid will be unique to your copy. If you want the real one with the trademark, the engraving cut deep into the lid, and the workshop story behind it, buy from us. If it isn't Creative Crafthouse, it isn't Penny Drop.

Penny Drop was designed and invented by Dave Janelle, the founder of Creative Crafthouse, in 2015. Dave had the idea, built a working prototype to see if it was fun, play-tested with family, friends, and people who walked into the shop, and after the game caught on the family filed the trademark. The mechanic, the push-your-luck roll-again-or-pass decision, and the take-all-pennies penalty for landing on a full slot, is original. The Penny Drop NAME is not derived from earlier coin-drop arcade pieces. Late-nineteenth-century saloon "penny drop" trade stimulators existed, but those were countertop gambling devices, not dice games, and they share the name only. Creative Crafthouse the company was founded in 2003. We invented and first sold the Penny Drop game in July 2015, twelve years after the company started, and our family team has hand-made every Penny Drop in our Hudson, Florida workshop since.

Two to six players is the family target, with the sweet spot at three or four. The game also works as a single-player push-your-luck warm-up once you know the rules. You can stretch it beyond six players if everyone has pennies and the patience for a longer wait between turns, but games run cleaner under six. We have customers playing with six-year-olds at the kitchen table and customers playing with adult friends at a bar. The only reading skill required is recognizing the numbers 1 through 6 on the die. The luck-plus-decision structure gives a younger player a real chance against grown-ups, which is part of why the family-game crowd keeps coming back to it. Game length runs five to twenty minutes per round.

Yes. Every Penny Drop GAME in this collection can be laser-engraved with up to 45 characters on the lid or game board by default, cut deep into the grain, permanent, will not fade or wash off with years of play. The one exception is the Penny Drop Wooden Replacement Die (an accessory in this collection); its faces are too small for engraving to fit cleanly, so the die is sold un-personalized. Every other piece accepts a name, a couple's wedding date, a child's birthday, a short message, or a small logo. Engraving location depends on the edition: the Original Penny Drop Premium engraves on the cherry sliding lid; Penny Drop II engraves on the maple lift-off cover; Penny Drop Medium engraves on the maple top; Penny Drop Travel engraves on the raintree top with the wooden penny inset; Penny Drop Giant Poker Chip engraves on the larger top panel. If you want the engraving placed somewhere other than the default location (a side panel, the back of the box, or a hidden surface), say so in the personalization notes at checkout or email sales@creativecrafthouse.com and we will work it out with you. Businesses adding a logo or wanting engraving on multiple sides can also email sales@ for a quote. See our laser engraving page for fonts and examples, and request a quote for custom work for logos, multi-side engraving, or full custom artwork.

It depends on the edition. We use a mix of woods across the Penny Drop family, chosen to suit each design. Original Penny Drop Premium: cherry on the lid (dense, takes the engraving deep and shows the cut cleanly), floorboard for the box body (resists scratches and water far better than ordinary wood). Penny Drop II: maple on the lid (lighter color, sharper engraving contrast against the wood). Penny Drop Medium: raintree box, maple top. Penny Drop Travel: raintree on both the box and the lid, with a laser-engraved wooden penny inset. Penny Drop Artisan: rubberwood throughout (lighter weight, distinctive grain). The Mini, the Classic, the Giant, and the Gift Set follow similar mixed-hardwood patterns listed on each product page. Every piece is laser-cut in our Hudson, Florida workshop and hand-finished with food-safe oil. Edges on the Premium and the II are hand-routed for a smoother grip and a softer table feel. Wood grain varies piece to piece, so no two boards are identical.

Yes on the dice. We sell a Penny Drop Wooden Replacement Die for $2.95, a single hand-made wooden die from our Hudson, Florida workshop, sized to fit every Penny Drop edition in this collection. Order one as a spare for the table or as a replacement for a lost or damaged die. The die itself is the one piece in the Penny Drop family that cannot be personalized; its faces are too small for laser engraving to fit cleanly. Pennies are not something we ship: every Penny Drop game runs on twelve standard United States pennies per player that the player supplies. We do not sell a penny pouch as a separate item today; any standard coin pouch from a craft or hardware store works for storing the pennies between games. If a branded Creative Crafthouse penny pouch is something you would actually buy, email puzzles@creativecrafthouse.com and we will track interest.

Yes. The Penny Drop Giant, Poker Chip Edition is our tournament-scale Penny Drop, at 11.25 x 4.5 x 4 inches. Instead of pennies it plays with standard poker chips, which is what makes it the one we ship most often for game-room setups, bar installations, charity tournaments, and event play. A downloadable scorecard and a printable tournament rule sheet are on our short list to publish. In the meantime, if you are running a charity tournament, a game-night league, a corporate event, or a school-club night and you want guidance on bulk orders, custom-branded boards, scorecard drafts, or rules variants we have seen work, email sales@creativecrafthouse.com.

Returns: full terms live on our shipping and return policies page (linked from the footer of every page). The short version: an unused, non-engraved Penny Drop can be returned within the published window. Personalized engraved pieces are made to order, so we handle those case by case (we replace or refund any manufacturing defect without question). Email sales@creativecrafthouse.com to start any return or replacement, and Deb on our team will handle it personally. Gift wrap and gift note: we do not offer formal gift wrap, but every Penny Drop ships in clean packaging that is appropriate for direct gifting straight from the box. Add a short message in the order notes during checkout and we will tuck a printed card into the package at no charge.