Having geo coins made

[+redjada]

Is it possible to have just a couple coins made? I have been looking around and it seems there are minims of 100-250. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

[+NOSNOW]

Check out this topic Same question. It may answer the questions you have.

[+PaRacers]

Your best bet for only a few coins is to look into something hand made or something you can make yourself. Design and die costs would make it very expensive to make only a few coins.

Here's the best alternative I can think of:

These are personalized Lucky Coin tokens for around $2 each:

http://stores.ebay.com/rouge713

[+drneal]

probably your biggest battle is buying tracking codes from Groundspeak if you plan to go trackable. They have a minimum number you need to buy at a time. I was able to buy a set of 50 sort of personalized coins (Atwell's Jukebos Top 50,) but you need to catch a coin company offering that sort of item (watch the forum, I would assume (a comedian by the name of Benny Hill had something to say about assuming,) with economics being what they are, these might become a little more common, but I don't produce coins.)

 

Non-trackable items (eartha forgive me, for I will now sin,) still personalized, should be much easier to attain in smaller quantities...I'm working on one now. I see groups of personalized poker chips for sale in the dark place (rhymes with see way.)

 

I'm sure others will add their offerings on this topic soon. A list of coin manufacturers is available if you look under trackable items, then geocoin home, bottom right side of the page...start e-mailing...you might find someone aready has something in the works, that you'll like!

 

drneal

 

ILYK

 

edited to add, you might also want to consider attaching a travel bug or traveler to a personal item to make it trackable!

Edited February 21, 2009 by drneal

[+CHI-TOWN ROMEO]

Sure you could have a couple coins made, but they would be very very expensive. You would need to work with a company, have your coin designed, Pay the die fees upfront and then purchase some trackable samples before putting in your order which would be the cost of the samples and the tracking numbers...Then dont order the coins after your samples arrive...Not really a nice thing to do but yes it could be done... The coin companys go through a lot of work with you to help you design your coin and some dont even charge for that service...They are helping you so that they will have a happy customer... I beleive www.Oakcoins.com will make an order of 50 coins if really nessecery but that does up the cost of each coin...They are wonderful to work with

 

Die fees $60 and up for each side

Samples about $10 for each coin

Tracking fee is $1.50 for each sample coin

And then add the very expensive shipping of at least $20 or more for the sample

 

So say for 4 sample coins you would spend about $186.00 - Not a very good deal, maybe you should look into pathtags or wooden tokens

Edited February 21, 2009 by CHI-TOWN ROMEO

[+Renegade Knight]

Is it possible to have just a couple coins made? I have been looking around and it seems there are minims of 100-250. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

 

A small quantity like that would be cast from a mold. The process is different. It's not cheap, but perhaps cheaper than paying for a die like you would for a regular coin run of a hundred or more.

 

Sometimes the local trophy shop has a line on someone who can do this kind of thing.

[+Jackalgirl]

Here's a quick low-down on a process that might work.

 

1) Check with your local Parks & Recreation department. I kid you not. In Columbus, Ohio, the P&R runs the Cultural Arts Center, where you can take art classes on the cheap, and they have bronze- and aluminum-casting classes there.

 

2) Failing that, check around at your local community colleges, especially if you have any that have to do with art, and see if they offer summer courses.*

 

You may also want to talk with scavok about the ease of melting copper at home. I don't know its melting point, but I imagine it's something you could do in a garage...the trick would be doing it safely.

 

Remember that your coins don't have to be metal. They could be ceramic, they could be glass -- mosaic, cast/blown, or "slumped", or even resin (we have one guy on the Forum who makes coins by crushing coal and mixing it with resin).

 

Also, jewelry classes might also offer you the opportunity to do some very small-scale casting in metal, or to use the specialized clays that turn into silver or gold when you bake them in a kiln.** Additionally, most jewelry classes (at the Cultural Arts Center, at least) offer instruction in enameling (cloisonne), so you could really produce some nice stuff.

 

(heck, if you are a decent painter, I'll bet you could find some round token-like pieces at a local paint-your-own-pottery place and paint them up as geocoins. It should be easy and cheap and not as involved as taking a pottery/jewelry/metalworking class.)

 

(I've also seen people use dremels to "sculpt" metal blanks. I imagine this would take a fairly steady hand.)

 

3) Check around with the vendors that are listed in the pinned list at the top of the Forum. See if any of them would sell or sponsor a couple of tracking codes to you. Or buy a couple of Travel Bugs and use their tracking numbers.

 

4) Make sure you submit your design to Groundspeak for approval. Then make the coins in your art class. Voila!

 

*Note that any bronze- or aluminum-casting classes will probably have you making your sculpture in wax, which means you'll make a mold using the lost-wax process. You can use flexible molding compounds on the wax to make a mold so that you can make copies. But if you're going to do that, I highly recommend that you use Kneadatite Modeling Putty (also known as "the green stuff"; it comes in blue and yellow stripes of compound that you mix together). People who sculpt gaming and model minitatures use this stuff. It hardens relatively slowly, so you have time to work, but is very solid when you are done and will stand up well to flexible mold making. You could make several "copies" in the hard wax used for lost wax, then engrave the tracking code into the wax, then cast the pieces.

 

If it sounds complicated, it is (but it isn't). Any decent metal-casting class will provide you with the tools, processes, and help that you'd need to pull it off.

 

**If anyone's interested, I've seen this clay -- and small kilns to use in the home to bake the clay and other related supplies -- in the catalog for Fire Mountain Gems. I'll bet you could find the same stuff in other jewelry-makers' catalogs and websites. It would not be cheap, though.

 

They also have mold-making supplies, which can come in handy for making molds.