Brass Die Cut Coins

[James & Zelma Litzmann]

I have a couple of questions and I am not sure this is where I need to post them, but here goes.

1) Can you engrave on the back side of the die cut coins?

2) Does anyone know of a company that make these?

[Martin Boekers]

Are you looking to have coins made?

Are you just looking for blank coins that you can rotary etch or Cermark?

If you your looking for having custom coins made, do a google search under challange
coins, they are very big in the military. Most have minimums of at least 50. Pretty competative
market and many suppliers.

If your looking for blanks to engrave PLEASE let me know if you find any. I have literally
been searching for years to find a metal blank. Yes custom shops will make them blank
but they still want to charge full price as designed and colored.

The closest I have found is a company that makes dies for stamping into leather, the company
name escapes me right now. I'll see if I can find it if thats what you are looking for.
I found them at NBM show in Indy last year.


Marty

[Luke Phillips]

I have a couple of questions and I am not sure this is where I need to post them, but here goes.

1) Can you engrave on the back side of the die cut coins?

2) Does anyone know of a company that make these?

might try https://store.nwtmint.com/product_details/3279/Engravable_47mm_Brass_Coin/

[Gary Hair]

I would highly suggest Catania Medallic, they have amazing customer service and products that are fantastic! cataniainc dot com If you call, ask for Jen or Vince and tell them Gary from Laser Image sent you. I don't get anything for that but I'm sure they would appreciate the recomendation.

Gary

[Mike Null]

Zelma

You cannot engrave them with a laser. You may be able to use Cermark but not easily. I would suggest a mechanical engraver using the diamond drag method.

Catania and Faro-USA are good suppliers.

[Dave Gates]

I would try Catania about having the blanks made first.
They make a medal that is laser engravable. I doubt it's made of brass but has a nice antique/brushed satin gold appearance.

[Martin Boekers]

might try https://store.nwtmint.com/product_details/3279/Engravable_47mm_Brass_Coin/

I have been lookiing for this exactly! but not for $10 yikes. It's still cheaper to have it done as a coin but without images and colors.

But this does give me an idea to check with ASI (promotional product) suppliers as they are geared towards resellers and not retail.

Thanks for getting me going on this!!!! :-)

[James & Zelma Litzmann]

Hey, just wanted to say thank you for all your suggestions. We have some great leads because of them, not sure which one we are going to use yet, they are sending samples, so for now we wait. Thanks again!

[Bill Cunningham]

I use ATDesigns dot com They have a ABC discount schedule for resellers..

[Martin Boekers]

might try https://store.nwtmint.com/product_details/3279/Engravable_47mm_Brass_Coin/

I contacted these guys and became a dealer (at no cost) so I then got the discout ;-).

here are a few samples I made up this morning using Magic Touch CLTT.

Not great, but not bad either.

Left side coin brass colored, right side coin a darker pewter in color.
Front and back views. I do see some potential. Nice large size 50mm
and a good weight to them.

Thanks for the tip! :cool:

Marty

[Martin Boekers]

might try https://store.nwtmint.com/product_details/3279/Engravable_47mm_Brass_Coin/



Here are a few more coins I did, this time I cut Rowmark Mates (dye sub) into 1.875" circles and transfered the image to the discs.
This worked out much better and more durable! Now to get Rowmark to make it in a satin surface to.

I have emailed NWTmint to about slightly changing the size. If they make the insert area 2" in diameter it opens up all the standard
sized medallion discs that are out there and much greater oppertunity for sales.

The dealer cost for coins $5ea. These are a nice coin in size and weight. Now to get the cost down to about $2.50 and it will be a go!

[Jim Good]

Martin, are your sales usually low volume on the coins or are they typically decent volumes for a particular design? If your cost is $5 per coin, how does a typical markup to the customer differ from a typical markup for engraving material? In other words, many people have a x3 multiplier on engraving materials, how does that compare with coins? I'd be interested in knowing how that may change from a 10 coin order versus 150.

Jim

[Martin Boekers]

Jim,

I am looking at the coins as one of those specialty-interest-get them in the shop thing.
These will be typically 1-10, Priced from $15-$20ea for special events, a promotion,
retirement gifts for family, Individual achievement awards or any event that basically
a handful of personalized pieces are needed. I have priced these on a lower end to keep
interest and affordability. As this economy changes I have had to keep a fair amount
of nice items priced in the lower end, but still can make a few bucks on. Ones I have
sold so far have been an add on to a larger order. These don't take much time to do
so I can still make enough to justify my time even at one up pace. It's nice to make
more money, but sometimes it's nice to make any money! As I said this gets some newcomers
on the shop and usually is an add-on-sale. What I call "extra business" I try these things
to generate new revenue and not just replace an award with a different style one "replacement
sale" if you understand what I mean.

The napkins I started doing are a similar type product, the first napkins I did were small part of a sale that
generated about $1000. I'm marketing those for conference room area, since they are neat and new
I hope they can be part of a larger order including mugs, writing pad protectors, coasters, glasses etc as well as pesonalized placeholders for awards banquets..

Word has gotten around about the uniqueness and creativity of some of my products and it does bring
people in the shop. I have 5-10 come in every week that come to see what I'm doing, so it's working for me.

We have our base picnic in a June and that will be the formal introduction to many of these new products.

As for larger quantity coins for units and such, it's just too competative to venture there. Most those manufactures
sell to the end user, and not much available to mark up on my end. We are in the "personalizing business"
so I tend to stick closer to that.

I'm projecting sales of these to be about 200-300 this year, I do poker chips now and wood coins at about 1000 a year.
So it will be interesting to see how these perform.

One challenge coin company is doing a similar thing with these "insert coins", but they
are marketing quantity runs that can be shipped in a couple days as opposed to 4 weeks+.

Time will tell.


Marty