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Home Made Wooden Geonickels


darus67

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I would like to make my own wooden nickels as sig items but I don't have funds in the budget to have a few hundred of them professionally printed. I found blanks available locally at Michael's crafts, but I'm not sure how to put my artwork on them. I want to do something more than drawing them by hand with a sharpie. I'm imagining some kind of transfer I could print out with my computer and then apply to the blank coin. I wonder if the T-shirt transfer material would work on wood. (Do they even work on T-shirts?)

 

Suggestions? Anyone? Bueller?

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One thought might be to pay to have 2 rubber stamps made, one for each side of the coin. Then just stamp the coins with ink, like the pros do it. If someone was very handy, they could probably make an automated press to make the production easier.

 

I can imagine the cost of having a stamp made is significantly less than the price of the production....

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I can imagine the cost of having a stamp made is significantly less than the price of the production....

 

Not by a lot, unfortunately. I looked into custom stamps a little and they seem to run about $25 each in the size appropriate for a wooden nickel.

 

Burning the imprint in is a neat idea. Certainly waterproof. I wouldn't have a clue where to go looking for a custom woodburning brand. I imagine the price would make custom stamps look positively frugal, too.

 

Clear labels sounds nice. No significant investment in tooling. I already have a color printer. I can change my design at will. I would think that a coat of clear sealer sprayed on after the labels are applied would help with water resistance too.

 

More ideas? Keep 'em coming!

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I can imagine the cost of having a stamp made is significantly less than the price of the production....

 

Not by a lot, unfortunately. I looked into custom stamps a little and they seem to run about $25 each in the size appropriate for a wooden nickel.

 

$25? CR (of Sissy-n-CR) made by stamp for $3-4. Unfortunately, he isn't doing them anymore. :rolleyes: I bought 4 lbs (about 650) half blanks (one side blank, one side printed with a "Support our Troops" logo) for about $80 from www.wooden-nickel.com, and stamped the other side myself one night while watchin' TV.

 

Alternatively, you could find a couple of stock stamps at Michael's and handwrite your caching name on them. The sealer is a good idea, though. Even if the ink is waterproof, the wood will warp if it gets wet.

 

Edit: I forgot to note, when I bought my little round stamp, I bought it unmounted and glued it to the lid of a small medicine bottle. Works beautifully. A lot of the cost of a custom stamp is the big ole handle they attach it to.

Edited by Spencersb
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Alternatively, you could find a couple of stock stamps at Michael's and handwrite your caching name on them.

 

Thats a possibility.

My wife is into rubber stamping. We've got a few gazillion stamps.

Her: How much did that GPS cost?

Me: about 3 stamp sets

She gets to spend money on her hobbies, I get to spend on mine. (:

 

Edit:  I forgot to note, when I bought my little round stamp, I bought it unmounted and glued it to the lid of a small medicine bottle.  Works beautifully.  A lot of the cost of a custom stamp is the big ole handle they attach it to.

 

Ah. The $25 I mentioned was for a pre-mounted, self-inking, 1.5" dia, round, stamp with custom graphics.

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I went with the rubber stamp method for mine a while back. Two stamps shipped to me was about $14, and I just stamp them onto the wooden nickel blanks. When my wife and I each take a stamp, we have a ziploc full of them ready to go into caches in just a few minutes.

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I recently started making my own sig nickels. I create the artwork and print a front and back design on a 2" x 4" clear label, stick it to the nickel, and with a rotary tool, etch the design into the nickel. A lot of time is involved because no two nickels are the same. The front and back change with each nickel, and the back picture every 25 coins with each series change. They're pretty rough looking and don't look near as good as a professional job, but they're sure fun to make :mad:

 

coin1a.jpgcoin1b.jpgcoin2b.jpg

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I'm having custom stamps made from www.stamp-connection.com. They make acrylic stamps which makes stamp placement easier.

 

I posted on the trading forum a bit ago, but will post again when I get some made up when I get the stamps in.

 

I have 500 1.5" and 500 1" blanks. The 1" i will just use some of the rubber stamps I have around here.

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I had my first 250 wooden nickels done by wooden-nickel.com. They made me two nice rubber stamps as well for a total of $125, and they were very nicely done. Then I had some blanks and I thought I would try to stamp them. I had trouble getting the ink to dry, and finally sprayed them with an acrylic to keep them from smearing. I decided my time was worth more than that, especially after I gave in and re-ordered. Because I was a repeat customer and they already had my graphics, it cost me the same amount as the first order to get one thousand of them done. I just can't make them for that, and they turn out much nicer than anything I could do. Time IS money.

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Has anyone seen one of these Path Tags??

 

They look somewhat like geocoin and wooden nickel hybrids. They are trackable and pretty afforable. But I have yet to see one.

 

I just saw them... I don't think they are trackable in the sense of our our tracking. I looks like the tracking is just a number assigned to all your tags, so people can track that they've met you. You couldn't follow a tag through caches as you can with gc tracking (or travellertags tracking) as all your tags have the same number.

 

looks like a "metal nickel" system. I'll stick with our shrinkydinks, geocoins, and maybe some wooden nickels with labels. Can do alot of all of those for the $99.

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ATMouse uses a combination of Woodburning and permanent marker I believe. Very, very inexpensive and really high quality, too. One of the nicest wooden nickels we've ever traded for. :antenna:

 

:antenna:

 

Thanks - and they are inexpensive, just some labor and ordinary craft-type stuff you can pick up just about anywhere.

 

The big investment is the blanks.

 

DSC00970.jpg

 

And a UV pen is fun:DSC00972.jpg

 

 

token3.jpg

token1.jpg

token2.jpg

Edited by ATMouse
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:antenna: Here's an idea, I got a wooden nickel in trade not too long ago from a guy that just took a limb off of a tree about the right size and apparently had a bandsaw and cut his own nickel blanks, the design was hand drawn on the blank and it still had the bark off of the limb still on it. Very awesome. I believe that's the route I'm gonna try next. Oh yeah if you get a chance to trade for one of AT's "Nickels" definitely do, they are HUGE, and Very well designed. They have to be one of my favorites, if not The favorite. :antenna: Edited by 57chevy
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for all of you out there interested in these kinds of coins i have been collecting them for the short year i've been geocaching and just put all 80 of them into a cache; "The Homemade Geocoin Museum" (GC215ZC). it's basically a 3 ring binder with coin sleeves in it. i love the collection and wanted to be able to share it with everyone - a lot of talent and effort out there.

 

i have included wooden nickels as well as several other styles; quite a few people take poker chips and put stickers on their middles, some people alter money (pennies and nickels) either with cutouts or by pressing them (one side custom), some have made individual ones out of femo clay, some are unique acrylic shapes with marker, i have a few pieces of plastic with names embossed or engraved, etc. the list is long and pretty neat, so if you're in town, some check it out - it's a real easy multi-cache (too sentimental to not be under lock and key, and the key is 1/2 block away).

 

also, i made a "traveling exhibit" from The Homemade Geocoin Museum if you can't get down here and would like to see some examples in your neck of the woods. it's travel bug TB2HVTY.

 

all that inspiration has me thinking i need to get my own coin going.........

 

unafraid leroy

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