1) I wonder how much it would cost to design and make a commemorative or token to make your statement? If you made it out of copper, silver or gold. 2) What would it take to make it legal so that you could market it? 3) Who out there makes tokens or commemoratives? 4) are there any written rules governing the process?
There are many companies that will do it for you, and it is completely legal as long as the token does not copy actual money. As far as cost, that depends on many you want minted. It can range from around $600 to thousands.
any idea of any names of companies that do this? What key words do you know of that I could google it?
They also have coins for geocaching. Can be made with any design u want and pretty cheap. Not sure of what metals are available though. I think they are called travel tokens or something. YOu can hide them and make treasure hunts with GPS'rs and then they take the coin and move it somewhere else and you can track who has had it and where it has been.
I know silvertowne in Indiana will make 1oz silver bars with what ever you want on them. I would guess they would do the same with 1oz silver rounds.
Not sure how you'ld contact them but in China there appears to be Mints that are really good at making US coins. Instead of commemoratives you could have them make you all kinds of rare coins such as many so called dream coins like a 1913 Liberty Head Nickel. Then they could take a break making all those Silver Dollars.
Lol . . . Seems hard to believe that someone would go through all that trouble to make a mold of a coin then only make one or two. Then how do you make a coin that appears to be F in condition instead of BU?
Our club uses North American Mint which has an excellent reputation. The club has been working with them for years. PM me if you would like contact information. Medal cost has two major components: the metal cost and the die cost. There may also be some initial design cost depending on the artwork. I would expect die costs to range in the hundreds to low thousands based on the invoices I have seen. Metal cost will probably be dependent on when you pull the trigger: spot plus some sort of uplift (or not).
You would still have to apply artificial wear to it and some kind of aging/ coloring treatment. Because even if you copied a Fine, when you strike it it would still have the flowlines and luster of a MS coin. There are MANY private mits out there that would be happy to make your token/medal for you. Silvertowne was mentioned, besides silver they can also strike copper, bronze, nickel and other base metals for you. Die cost is around $500 - 800 per die. There is also a private mint right down the street from me that makes a lot of military Challenge Coins. So they are around if you just look a little bit. There used to be a lot of them in the Cincinnati OH area. Another common one that a lot of coin dealers use to make advertising pieces for themselves is The Patrick Mint. http://www.patrickmint.com/ (no commercial connection to myself) If you use a stock obv die from them they'll strike 1,000 pieces for you with your text on the reverse for $650. Don't know what they would charge for custom designsbut they seem to be willing to do so.
Conder: I called Patrick Mint and his system seems to fit exactly what I would require and price was very reasonable. I appreciate the lead. Now let me see if there's a market for it over here. :kewl:
