GregsonVaux

Thanks for the feedback. I also like the contrast provided by the sandblasting and I did not expect it to turn out so well. I can easily see using it again for future editions and designs. Speaking of future designs, I have more in the pipeline, but getting them produced is surprisingly time consuming.

That looks like a really great product. I don't see anything wrong with the logo on there since it is the company that makes them. Even non-profits like NPR or the Red Cross put their logos on the items they sell.

I didn't see this thread until today. I am so sorry to hear about the financial strain. It seems like nearly everyone is being impacted by the economy and I am having to tighten my belt too. I get the impression that to a greater or lesser degree, we are all in this together.

I just received the last two payments and now all of the orders have been shipped. Thanks to everyone for sending your payments quickly. I am honored that 100% of the people that placed reservations followed through with their orders. Since I will be selling coins at the Geocoinfest in October, I ordered plenty of extra coins. This means that anyone who still wants to place an order is welcome to now by e-mail.

Let me say more about what worked for me. I noticed that on eBay, some coins don't sell very well even though they look nice. I won an auction for $5.00 and contacted the seller. It turned out that he had hundreds of coins that he couldn't get rid of. I bought 60 of them off him for $5.00 each. I have now released about half and will continue placing them in caches until they are all gone. They are fine looking coins; I think that the seller just made too many of them. I remember the fist time that I found a geocoin in a cache. It was a great feeling and I want other people to experience that. I also enjoy following the coins on their travels. My coins have been to Europe, Australia, and South America. One coin was even on its way to Antarctica, but the ship had to stay docked because of the weather.

Personally, I don't like proxies. It is like showing up for a date and instead of finding a real girl, there is a mannequin with a note taped to it saying "please accept this proxy, I didn't want to get hurt". Life is about risking. There is some winning and some losing, but you can't get anywhere without risk. Plain and simple, a real coin is solid, weighty, and a joy to hold in your hand. A proxy is little more than an insult. I am not saying that anyone should throw away money, it is quite possible to buy good looking coins for under $5.00 on sale. I bought a full-sized coin about a year ago on eBay for $2.50 that went missing for a while and then when I thought it was lost, it showed up again. That is the risk and pleasure of a real coin. Some people might want to kiss an inflatable doll, but I choose to kiss real girls, even if there is a chance of getting hurt.

I own a Hoppy coin and a Topper coin. Does anyone know if the other three coins were ever made?

My coin arrived today and it was worth the wait! It really is a joy to hold in my hand.

I don't rest very easily until orders have been shipped, so all of the packages for which I received payment, domestic and international, were sent out last night. Seventy-five percent of all of the invoices have been paid, which is pretty good being that it has been less than 24 hours since I sent them out.

Thanks! I chose the edition name out of all the various lunar seas, because I figured that there wouldn't be a better metal combination than copper and gold, very warm, fiery, and royal. It turned out even better than I had hoped.

All invoices, both domestic and international, have been sent. Please tell me if you did not receive one. For those who have not placed an order, you are still welcome to do so. Since everyone who wanted a Darkest Before Dawn edition has now been invoiced, restrictions on the number ordered have been lifted.

The coins are in! When I opened the box, I was surprised and pleased that they turned out so well. The Sea of Nectar editions with the 18k gold on the solid copper may be my favorite edition yet. The Darkest Before Dawn editions were sandblasted before the black nickel was applied in order to make the details more prominent and the technique turned out better than my expectations. Please excuse the number of pictures, but I am rather proud of this particular order. For those who made reservations, I will be sending out invoices in the next couple of days. For those of you who still want to place an order, please see post #91

I just ordered mine.

We keep hearing about how depressing it is that coins disappear from caches, but my response is always that unless we know that a coin has been physically destroyed, it is still in play, even if it is not heard from for twenty years. I released a golden retriever coin from the Rising Sun mint (I bought it for $2.50) and when it disappeared last June, I figured that it was going to remain in someone's personal collection for quite some time. Much to my surprise, it resurfaced today and is once again traveling. The moral of the story is that all of those coins that have gone missing are really just on undercover missions. Many of them will turn up again. If you want to visit my coin, here is its number: TB3F82V

If there is a remint, I would like one too.

I just received an update that the new Dawning Hope order is on the way. I expect the coins to arrive sometime next week and it will contain the following editions: Midgard (hard enamel on antique gold) Sea of nectar (2-tone gold highlights on solid copper) Darkest Before Dawn (2-tone shiny nickel on black nickel) The Darkest Before Dawn is a limited edition only available to members of this forum. I will be posting pictures when the coins arrive. For those of you who already placed a reservation for a Darkest Before Dawn, you are welcome to increase your reservation to two coins (everyone else is limited to one). Just email me if you want to increase your order. For those who have still not made a reservation, feel free to send me the following information: Real Name Groundspeak Username (your name in this forum) Shipping Address Paypal E-mail Number of each version you are reserving

A local person may be the way to go. I live in Pittsburgh, which is trying to build up its glass community and I would rather deal with local people. I think that I will start contacting people and see if I can come up with something. Thanks for the incentive.

Thanks, I have seen those coins. My understanding is that the blanks were custom made, which would probably lead to a much more expensive coin. I am looking for something that is already being mass produced. For instance, it is easy to buy glass gems that look a bit like marbles, but are flat. I thought that I could use something like that, but I couldn't find anything the right size and flat enough. There are also Crystal Compass geocoins. Whatever they are using for blanks does not have polished edges, so they do it themselves. I am currently set up for engraving glass, though I don't have the ability to polish glass, or at least not yet. If I can't identify anything, I will have to go with the Chinese manufacturer. I would rather not do that, because even though their price per unit is quite good, the overall cost is high. They also want me to wire them money, which makes me very nervous.

I am interested in making glass geocoins and was hoping that some of you might be able to give a suggestion or two. The design will be inscribed using sand blasting, but I am not sure what to use as a blank. In other words, where do I find a glass disk that is about 2" in diameter with very flat faces. It would be best if the faces and the edge are polished. I found a manufacturer in China that will make them for me at a decent price, but they want me to buy a large quantity and shipping is a bit steep. Does anyone know anything that I can use off the shelf?

I wasn't able to get to my computer until 40 minutes after the pre-sale had started. However, I was still able to buy a complete set! I love this artistic style.

No, you don't need to register and you don't need to put on a copyright notice. Just creating a new work of art is enough to receive automatic copyright. However, I do put copyright notices on my artwork to remind people. If they copy my images using a right click, the notice will go with it unless someone takes the time to excise it using photoshop. You can get a lot more information by typing "copyright" into Wikipedia.

That is the skill that I was talking about. Perhaps some artists don't want recognition and money, but most do. I know a lot of people who do music for a living and most (all?) of them are forever short of money. It is not that they lack skill as artists, it is that they either lack the skill or the desire to take care of the required business and marketing. Yes, the book and the pictures belong to the artist and we all respect that. However, in order to make a living and get recognition, he may need to get a business partner. The world is full of talented artists, but wealthy artists are rare.

I ordered one and I am very excited to get it!

Hi Kat, We seem to be getting into issues that have less to do with copyright and more to do with the value society places on art. I have changed careers a number of times and have sometimes thought about trying to make a living being creative. My conclusion over and over is that it is VERY difficult to make a living in art and I think that it has nothing to do with copyrights. My conclusion is that most people like to be creative and because it is so pleasant they are willing to do it for little money. Thus, the supply exceeds the demand and prices drop. Kat, you may complain about the time you put into your art, but remember, you are basically doing it for free, which means that it gives you inherent pleasure. I used to be involved in musical theater and many of the lead actors/singers in the musicals had day jobs and they sang and danced at night for free. Some of the cast members were paid, but they made barely enough to survive. In my life, I have known many artists, musicians, and actors and although some of them were quite good, they were either poor, or had day jobs to pay the bills. In general, the kinds of jobs that pay well are the ones that most people would never do for free. Getting back to the person who altered the photographs and sold them for huge sums, he reminds me of Andy Warhol. As I have said before, I consider Andy Warhol to be more of a businessman than an artist. He was able to find and exploit a market. He was able to sell himself and make people desire his work. Perhaps that is a sort of art, but it is not painting in the classical sense. My own feeling about the story is that the copyright laws worked as they should have and the original photographer received compensation as he should have. Can someone make money at art? Yes, but it is not easy. Also remember, that nearly all of the great artists lived in near poverty for some or most of their lives. I could say why this is, but it would require a lengthy essay that might tire many people. What I really want to stress is that the difficulty in making money at art has little to do with copyrights. It is about supply, demand, business sense, and marketing. In nearly all cases, successful artists have paired themselves with a benefactor/patron or a manager who is astute in business. Let's visit the story of the photographer one more time. He took some nice pictures but the article implies that he was not making any money off of them and probably never would have. It was the second person who did some drawing over the pictures that was able to make large amounts of money off of them. He may be a weasel, but he has a skill that the photographer lacked. In a better world, the two of them would have teamed up and both would have won.

Out of curiosity, what's your take on the "Rising Sun Mint" and their duplication of the Knights Templar geocoin? Okay? Not okay? Definitely not OK. I have said in nearly all of my posts that I very much believe in copyrights; people should be rewarded for their creativity. However, when copyrights go on too long, such as after a person has died, creativity is stifled. Copyright is not some sort of natural law, it was created by a government for a specific purpose and as culture and technology change, the law must change too. This is true for all law. The real purpose of the US Congress is to constantly write new laws because laws are imperfect and must constantly be tweaked. Most Americans are believers in copyright, because so much of our legal and economic system is based on the protection of property. In older legal systems, the king owned everything and could take away from the populace for any reason. In socialist legal and economic systems property is own by the collective. In a capitalist economic system, property is owned by individuals or corporations. Thus a capitalist system depends on strong property rights. People often complain about capitalism, but it has proved very successful in country after country.