Military Challenge Coins... Post Yours ♤

Oh also please check out this link:

http://www.coinbooks.org/club_nbs_esylum_v14n18.html#article4

Numismatist and author Ray Bows reviews a Red Book and discusses challenge coins in his review. It's worth the read.

 

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I have mixed feelings about this. To me, at worst, collecting these is stolen valor (here and here and here). In this case, you sound like the worst kind of war profiteer, selling the medals awarded to others.

Challenge coins are awards for service. Displaying a coin that you were not awarded is like wearing a medal that you were not awarded.

But where I work, we have a museum and the museum is a huge collection of unit badges. Someone collected them as a way to honor them by recording their times and places. And numismatics is about history. I have a coin that might have been struck under the authority of Diogenes of Sinope. Is that stolen philosophical analysis? I dunno...

 

See my reply to Jwt708. I understand numismatics as a branch of history - numismatics is the art and science that studies the forms and uses of money - and military orders and decorations fall within that scope because they have the form of money (round metal objects). Also, it is most likely that coins were invented as bonus payments to mercenaries. So, there is a lot of overlap.

But I have little regard for "coin collectors" who care only about strike and luster and if they can get a crossover and upgrade. They show you an 1850-O Seated Liberty Quarter and you say, "Wow... to think what the Compromise of 1850 cost Thomas Hart Benton." And it is not that they do not know, but that they do not care...

So, too, with Challenge Coins. Friday, a young captain was telling me about how he made his men sign their names on their bodies bags. I say "young" because I am old. I have challenge coins that were awarded to me. I would never, ever have one from his company because I did not earn it.

Yeah, everyone appreciates getting something for nothing. When I auction off books at my local coin club, I say I ask anything at all for them just because we do not appreciate what we do not pay for. One of my buddies laughs and says, "I would!" and I laugh with him -- but I know that he would just sell the books on eBay... If I wanted to do that, I would. I want true numismatists to have them, so I set a lower limit on the marginal utility. With Challenge Coins, the lower limit is a bit more well defined: Are you willing to put yourself on the line?

 

Nice catch! If you ever get in with a bunch of veterans at a bar, at least you will not be empty handed.

 

Yeah, I hate that... for us we always have to say "Search and Recovery... It is too late for rescue..." And it is not my group. I am in HQ. I just run a desk. The people who walk the ground deserve all the honors.

 

You don't get it. GTS: Google that Stuff...

 

I get that. See my response above about our Museum at Camp Mabry in Austin, Texas. If you can research the unit and its history, you will be performing a great service to the history of the people who served and to numismatics in general.

 

And where did you serve?

Secretary of the CIA? You were in Intelligence for the US Government? Wow, man, but of course you can neither confirm nor deny...

One time, I looked at CIA recruitment because it is very similar to what I do as a technical writer and really congruous with numismatic research: reading newspapers and writing abstract. Done a lot of that have you?

 

My father was wounded in Korea... patrolling the so-called "De-Militarized Zone" (actually the most militarized place on Earth). Thank you for your service.

I am not sure how the southern half of the Korean peninsula affects my happiness here in Austin, Texas, but I am pretty sure that the northern half is all about my becoming unhappy. So, my salute. to you for your service...

 

Thanks for the pics, Sar' Major! (I assume that that was you... Or were you the O-3?) Nice of you to do that. People are shocked when then find out how little active service pays, and yet you paid out yourself to have those made. Thank you.

 

Thank you for your service.

 

When the planes hit the towers, I did not volunteer. To me, it is complicated; and now I keep my mouth shut when my battle buddies violate guidance and discuss politics. That said, the Tower coins are fine. OTOH, the Iraqi Freedom coins are problematic. Did you serve?

 

Are you a numismatist, researching and publishing the histories that give meaning to these unit challenge coins?

 

See, that's where my problem area begins. You did not earn them. I have an FBI coin that was given to me by a battle buddy from the FBI. (She had more than one, having been awarded the same coin several times for her service.) But I keep it with some other honors such as my ANA Exhibitors Medal and my Defense Department Official Paperweight. My challenge coins - the unit awards - I keep elsewhere.

Two are in my top right sleeve pocket. Two are in my go-bag.

 

History is everything. Those who know history are condemned to be surrounded by those who have forgotten it. Thanks for the link. I am sorry that I missed this when it was emitted. I now have it archived.

 

Does your state have a State Defense Force?
https://sgaus.org/

Ohio has its own Navy and very strict requirements for land-based volunteers. Tennessee is also picky. However, Maryland puts up a cyber-defense unit. It all depends. I serve in Texas.

Georgia Defense Force coin here:
http://www.dekalbema.com/Teez/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=53

 

Thank you for your kind words. Korea is always on my RADAR. I watch with interest every time North Korea is mentioned in the news. I have dreams of re-enlisting and being sent back there all the time. It's kinda weird that way. And in my dreams, I'm always forgetting to bring something whether it be my boot's, hat or something that I need for my uniform. LOL

I do agree with you on the Stolen Valor aspect of buying and selling Medals and badges that are earned. But challenge coins like the one I have were given to me as a memento rather than performing a service. To me Medals and Badges are notated in your Military Service Records and can be verified. Where as Challenge Coins are something given away and collected, they are not necessarily tied to a duty that was performed and earned and then documented. Sure they are given to people for services they perform as a reward, but it's an unofficial form of a reward. It's kind of a grey area to me. Someone showing off a challenge coin may not be using it to say they served in the Armed Forces, but someone showing off a Purple Heart typically will be trying to say they earned it by serving when in fact they may not have actually earned it. That does bother me quite a lot.

 

How is it a case of stolen valor? OP bought the challenge coins as a lot... meaning they likely weren't purchased from the individual(s) who received the coins, as there were 40 of them. OP then took the time to sort and price the coins and earned a profit for doing so. How is that war profiteering?

My friend, who sells scopes, goggles, and vests to multiple nations at war with one another in S.E.A. is a war profiteer, and he's pretty vocal and proud of it.

While the Appellate Courts determined that wearing unearned medals is a form of free speech, the consensus is that doing so is in poor taste. As for display of challenge coins, I don't think I can agree. My understanding of challenge coins is that the unit command will award the coins for being a part of the command... or for acts that are deemed positive. Essentially, they exist to reward service members for actions that aren't award eligible. Generally speaking, no one has any idea how or why a specific coin was awarded except for the recipient and the giver. There are no official documents or guidelines for award of them.

Anyway, to bring my post back to the overall theme of the site, I picked this up at a Salvation Army. I bought it because I thought the emblem looked cool, and the challenge coin just happens to be a part of the display. I can't display it myself, as it is a personal gift to someone who isn't me... but I like to look at it occasionally, and it connects to where I live.

 

I think going so far as to call a challenge coin collector equal to someone who is impersonating a current or former service member a pretty big reach and actually irritates me a little.

I recently purchased a unit medal - or challenge coin - from the 2nd Division. I never served in the Army or in that unit but this is an early example of what would become the challenge coin and I consider it significant to numismatics. How did it end up on eBay? Is the original owner trying to raise some money? Was it lost or stolen? Was it willed to an heir who no longer wants it?

I really can't answer those questions. What I do know is that someone who appreciates the coin and it's place in numismatics now owns it. The current owner will cherish the coin and keep it safe and is interested in the unit.

So does this make me a war profiteer or stealing valor?

Here's the medal in question:

 

Well, I equivocated, using (at worst) "weasel words" because - as I said quite plainly - I am of two minds on this. I said that I appreciate numismatics as the preservation and recording of history. So, if a collector of challenge coins, or of military orders and decorations, does so with the perspective of a true numismatist, then the pursuit justifies itself.

It is the other side of the coin that worries me.