A Different Kind of Custom Coin
Most people who have a challenge coin or two are familiar with coin checks. The rules of the game go like this: If you’re out with your friends at a bar or restaurant, you can take out your coin and initiate a coin check by slapping it down on the table. Everyone else has to take out their coins, and the person who forgot their coin has to pick up the tab or buy a round of drinks.
That’s how it usually works, anyway. Every team comes up with their own rules and develops their own challenge coin etiquette over time. Ghost Horse Vineyards in California has one of the most unique challenge coin programs we’ve ever seen, and there are also motorcycle clubs, charity organizations, and military units that practice their own challenge coin traditions.
So, when someone says that they’re breaking the challenge coin rules, it’s impossible to know for sure what or whose rules they’re talking about. But today we’re not talking about the challenge coin game. We’re talking about how challenge coins are made.
More specifically, we’re talking about what challenge coins are made of. There are a lot of conventional rules about challenge coin manufacturing, and we’ve had the opportunity to work on a few designs that defy those conventions. You could say that we’ve broken a few rules of challenge coin design, but the results are nothing less than spectacular. Take a look for yourself.
How Are Challenge Coins Made and How Is Signature Coins Changing Things Up?
Almost all challenge coins are made of brass, zinc or steel. The other materials used to create challenge coins are enamel paint and precious metals like gold and silver.
Before you start wondering if your gold and silver challenge coins can fetch some serious cash on the second-hand market, we feel it’s important to point out that precious metals are only used to create a thin, permanent layer of plating on the outside of your coins.
For the most part, the value of challenge coins is sentimental in nature, and they have little monetary value — which makes these coins all the more exciting.
Nothing shines brighter than sterling silver. When we were contacted about creating these GUTS Champion coins, we were not sure what kind of challenges we would face when using solid silver to craft a design.
We did know a couple of things: First, we knew that these coins would be very expensive to make, and second, that they would hold their value unlike any other custom challenge coin.
Each coin is made using 2oz of silver, giving the design a remarkable appearance and significant weight. Skipping the usual brass, zinc and steel options for challenge coins will make your design cost a lot more to produce, but if you’re looking for a meaningful and valuable reward, using solid silver or gold is an option that we can provide.
Attempting What’s Never Been Done Before
Using solid gold or silver isn’t the only thing we’ve done that defies convention in the challenge coin world. In some cases, the materials we’ve used are considered even more valuable than precious metal.
These coins were created for veterans that served in the 551st Parachute Infantry in WWII. They look a lot like any other military unit coin at first glance, but when you know the story, you’ll see what makes them so remarkable.
On the back of the coins, we added actual soil taken from the unit’s landing sites during the war. It was all collected by one man from the unit when they landed in France, Belgium and Panama. He took all of the soil back to the states when the war ended, and today, it’s being given back to the surviving members of the team in honor of the 75th anniversary of their deployment.
The person that contacted us about making these coins let us know that no other challenge coin company would take on the project. The biggest roadblock was the soil itself. Customs in the United States isn’t a fan of shipping soil, so there was no way to get it to our production team.
In the end, we had our production team mint the coins and send them to our office. Our sales team took over from there and finished the coins. The soil was carefully mixed with clear epoxy and sealed into every coin. Once the epoxy set in place, the coins were packaged by hand and shipped.
Using special, sentimental materials to create a design is something we’ve done in the past. When Zac Pantaleo of Military Systems Group Inc. sent us metal shavings from his machine shop, we used them in his employee recognition coins. If you take a look, you’ll see tiny flecks of metal sparkling under the light.
Pantaleo got the idea from a military unit coin he received while in service that was partially made from spent shell casings his team used in combat. Incorporating actual materials that are meaningful to a team makes the design feel so much more real.
Trying New Things is What We Do
These coins only scratch the surface of how we've broken the traditional rules of challenge coin design. We’ve had the opportunity to design coins that are coated with cerakote, puzzle coins that form an entire submarine, and huge 9” coins that weigh more than 3 pounds each!
The reason we’ve been able to do these things is that we don’t turn customers away when they’re looking for something that’s never been done before. Our job is to help you bring your vision to life, and if that involves soil taken from around the globe, metal shavings from your factory, sterling silver or anything else, we’ve got you covered.
It might take a little longer to figure out how to get the job done, but we’ll take it step-by-step until the design is just right. And when all is said and done, we’ll be able able to say that Signature Coins is still changing the game, breaking the challenge coins rules, and making the best custom coins available anywhere in the world.
