+brian617 Posted May 18, 2006 Share Posted May 18, 2006 A friend of mine is a sculptor, goldsmith, and jeweler who runs his own side business making custom pieces for clients. Would that service be of interest to anyone here? He has made quite a few coins (mostly star wars coins for people wanting to fill holes in their collections) and could easily make a coin (that you design) or some such trinket to attach to a travel bug. His prices are very affordable. I wanted to gauge interest here before I reveal the link to his site. Quote Link to comment
+Tony Banks Posted May 19, 2006 Share Posted May 19, 2006 Interest would be dictated by prices. A friend of mine is a sculptor, goldsmith, and jeweler who runs his own side business making custom pieces for clients. Would that service be of interest to anyone here? He has made quite a few coins (mostly star wars coins for people wanting to fill holes in their collections) and could easily make a coin (that you design) or some such trinket to attach to a travel bug. His prices are very affordable. I wanted to gauge interest here before I reveal the link to his site. Quote Link to comment
+Team Chevelle Posted May 19, 2006 Share Posted May 19, 2006 Indeed -- it will come down to price. There are several great coin making places out there that will do up geocoins. But, they are doing larger runs -- where you pay for a die/stamp and then need to do 100+ coins. If your friend wanted to do smaller quantities at reasonable prices, I might be interested. I have a coin that I'd like to just do a dozen or so of, for example. If he could do them at prices close to what all the geocoin makers out there can do, but in that smaller quantity, then I think he'd see lots of interest. I just need a coin made for a non-geocaching relating thing where I want to give them to a small group of people at a one-time event... And, so far, I haven't found a cheap way to do that. - John... Quote Link to comment
+brian617 Posted May 22, 2006 Author Share Posted May 22, 2006 I have a coin that I'd like to just do a dozen or so of, for example. If he could do them at prices close to what all the geocoin makers out there can do, but in that smaller quantity, then I think he'd see lots of interest. I just need a coin made for a non-geocaching relating thing where I want to give them to a small group of people at a one-time event... And, so far, I haven't found a cheap way to do that. He can do both those things. Here's basically how he handles the custom stuff. You send him a drawing or a picture or even an existing piece and tell him what exactly you want. He'll work with you until a final design is agreed upon (this is done mainly online.) Before he'll carve a wax prototype he'll send you an estimate of the labor costs. It's usually less than $100 unless your piece is unusually complex. You'll have to send him a deposit ($25 or so) before he'll start carving. Once he finishes the prototype he'll send photos for final approval. I'm not sure how he's doing it now but I think before he makes a mold of the piece he'll ask for the balance of the labor costs to be paid. Once he makes the mold he can either send it off to the casting company he uses or he'll send it to you so you can get it cast yourself. 99.99% of all clients just use his casting company. He can get stuff cast in various metals from pewter to gold to titanium. The price per unit depends on the size and complexity of the mold. So basically you pay him for the carving and mold-making and then you order a certain quantity of your piece for casting. He doesn't do any markup for custom pieces so you basically get them at cost. He's made everything from wedding bands to tsuba (the guard on a katana sword) to pendants that mirror a client's tattoos. Geocoins that bear a special logo or a name or something would be easy but a series of geocoins each with unique ID numbers is a bit of a challenge. The latter could only be done in small quantities. I'll tell him that there's some potential interest here and if he tells me he can handle the possible workload I'll post his url. Quote Link to comment
+Team Chevelle Posted May 23, 2006 Share Posted May 23, 2006 Hmmm... In the end, I'm not sure that is going to be cheaper than any of the other geocoin places out there, is it? - John... Quote Link to comment
+Renegade Knight Posted May 23, 2006 Share Posted May 23, 2006 Hmmm... In the end, I'm not sure that is going to be cheaper than any of the other geocoin places out there, is it? - John... Possibly for small quantities. Probably not for large quantites. Quote Link to comment
spoterfast Posted May 23, 2006 Share Posted May 23, 2006 (edited) i am interested, but just you saying "im not sure but i think he can" isnt a very good gaurentee he is not going ot rip me off. [Edited by moderator for content] Edited May 24, 2006 by Keystone Quote Link to comment
Peanut Butters Posted May 23, 2006 Share Posted May 23, 2006 Does he have a web site? I think it would be better to show some examples and give us some pricing. Coin A Setup Cost $100 10-24 coins $x.xx per coin 25-50 coins $x.xx per coin etc. That way we have some idea how much something costs cause right now it sounds like it could be cheap, but it depends on the complexity. Quote Link to comment
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