Knowing Your Options
Choosing a metal plating is like laying the groundwork for your challenge coin design. Do you want the warm tone of a gold coin, the dark hue of a nickel-plated coin or maybe you want to mix two or more styles of plating in the same design? Multi plating is a popular option requested for coins used in law enforcement and in the military, but we’ve seen it used in thousands of different cases for all sorts of organizations.
Dual plating is an awesome way to make your design stand out from the crowd, but it’s important to know all your options before deciding on the final design. If you’re looking for a coin plated in gold and silver, or perhaps a black nickel coin with a touch of copper plating mixed in, you might want to consider metallic enamel instead of dual plating.
Dual Plating vs. Metallic Enamel
When it comes to dual plating, the most popular combination we see is gold and silver. The careful craftsmanship and precious metal required to create a gold or a silver challenge coin gives them a strong sense of value. Combining the two creates a beautiful sense of contrast in the artwork and helps different aspects of the design stand out.
Metallic enamel is used to create a very similar effect as dual plating. It’s made by mixing powdered metal fragments into the paint before it’s applied to your coins. This gives the enamel a metallic glimmer that shines under any light source. However, while bare gold or silver metal is highly reflective, metallic enamel is softer with almost a matte finish.
Another important difference between metallic enamel and dual plating is that metallic enamel can only be added to the recessed portions of a design. All enamel paint needs the raised lines of the artwork to prevent colors mixing or spilling over into parts of the design that aren't supposed to have enamel. Conversely, both raised and recessed portions of a design can be plated.
The Best Times to Use Metallic Enamel in Your Design
The softer finish of metallic enamel is sometimes the ideal effect for any given design. Gold and silver coins are very reflective, which is why we suggest using color to add contrast to the artwork. Since gold or silver metallic enamel is not as reflective as its solid metal counterpart, it can be used in place of dual plating to reduce the glare in the overall design without sacrificing the metallic shimmering effect.
The metallic silver in this design ensures that the shield and star at the center of the coin are easy to view, even under a strong light source. Using dual plating in this situation would make for a striking design, however, a high polish silver backdrop for the high polish gold emblems would create an overly busy design.
Metallic enamel is also an excellent alternative to dual plating if you’re only planning on having a small area presented in a different finish. For example, these two antique silver coins use gold metallic enamel instead of dual plating to accent the overall design.
The effect created by the metallic gold enamel added to these antique silver coins is good enough to fool members of our own office. The metallic powder mixed in with the paint gives the gold portions of the design a unique shine similar to that of gold metal. And since metallic enamel is less expensive than dual plating, it’s a much more cost-effective alternative if you only plan on having the dual plating effect on small parts of your design.
Some other instances where metallic enamel is better suited for a design than dual plating are when you have a colored metal (powder coated) coin or when you’re hoping to add high polish metal to an antique metal coin. The method for creating colored metal coins makes it difficult to dual plate any other type of metal into the design. As for antique metals, they pair well with other antique metals, but if you want a high polish metal shimmer on an antique design, metallic enamel is the only way to go.
Ordering Metallic Enamel For Your Own Design
Cost is always an important consideration when deciding between dual plating and metallic enamel. Dual plating your challenge coins will increase the unit price of your order by $0.70 for one side or $1.40 for both sides. It may not sound like much of an increase, but multiply the extra cost by the number of coins in your order, and it’s easy to see how a custom coin design can quickly exceed your team’s budget.
Metallic enamel only costs an additional $0.20 per side. If you’re looking for ways to keep the cost of coins down, metallic enamel will give you a unique effect at a great price.
If you’re thinking about using metallic enamel in your own design, just remember:
- Metallic enamel has a softer finish than metal plating, making it an ideal substitute for dual plating if you’re worried the reflective metal will overpower your design.
- Colored metal coins don’t react well to the duel plating process, so metallic enamel is the best way to create a similar effect.
- Metallic enamel is a cost-effective alternative to dual plating, especially if you only plan on dual plating small portions of the design.
There are all kinds of different ways to add color to a challenge coin design. The entire spectrum of Pantone colors are at your disposal when choosing a standard enamel, and we also have variations of translucent and glitter enamels that can add a little sparkle to your artwork. Metallic enamel comes in silver, copper and a few variations of gold, and the unique effect it creates is an excellent substitute for dual plating.
Whether you have a black metal coin, an antique copper coin or a high polish gold coin, including a splash of metallic enamel is a great way to create striking contrast in your artwork and help your design stand out from the crowd.
