THE MILITARY COIN/CHALLENGE COIN QUESTION I AM MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED
Well I guess the most obvious answer would be the coins we did for Suze Orman upon the release of her book. It wins not only because she and her associate KT are two of the nicest and kindest people we have worked with but also because she bought so many. It was a fun experience and we enjoyed working with Suze very much. We still do coins for her. Her money advice has come in very handy as well.
While we are speaking of famous people, I did a coin for Sean Astin. Some of you will know him as Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings. Most of us know him for his wonderful body of work. What a treasure he is. Working with him was pure pleasure. Even though there are few busier people around, he was kind enough to take time to write cards to my two nephews. His mom (Patty Duke) can be really proud of him;)
NOT ALL GENERALS ARE THE SAME
But almost all of them are good people to work with. I suppose that by the time you make flag rank you have pretty much come to grips with authority. For it seems that the generals we make military coins for are really easy to work with. It takes some getting used to when an Admiral says, “call me Bob” but they do. So how easy? One two-star general l I worked with simply said, “just make a nice coin for me. Put two stars on it and whatever else you think it needs”. I did and he ordered them without a change.
THE COFFEE CUP COIN
One of my favorite coins started with a very sad story. A young soldier from Arizona, Elijah Wah Wong, was killed in action in Operation Iraqi Freedom. His friends wanted to make a coin to memorialize him. They wanted to put something personal on it to remember him by. He liked coffee so they asked me to put a coffee cup on the coin. This is one of my favorite coins and is sitting two feet from my desk as we speak. It is an honor to make such a coin.
THE 69TH FIGHTER SQUADRON
A number of years ago I had a coin from the 69th Fighter Squadron. I suspect that it might not work in today’s more PC atmosphere. It said “Wine ‘em, Dine ‘em ……
Oh well. This is a family site. You can figure it out.
More on my favorite and unique challenge coins later.
We really enjoy making unique coins. I have even discounted them considerably just because I wanted to make them.