Challenge Coins Add Diversity to Historic Collections
Challenge coins have been in existance for many years, dating back to World War I, but their popularity among collectors has only recently climbed to epic proportions. What was once only a pastime associated with the armed forces has quickly grown beyond the troops and ventured out into other areas of civilan life.
What makes these challenge coins so addictive is the myriad of shapes, sizes and finishes you may venture across when seeking out a challenge coin to add to your collection. Most challenge coins are round in shape, but the trend over the past few years has been headed towards oddball shapes. You can discover challenge coins in the outline of overseas countries, firearms, troops, and even beer bottle openers.
Brass used to be the typical metal finish used with custom challenge coins, and became the industry standard many decades back. With improved metal plating techniques, challenge coins have been manufactured in antique silver, gold, black nickel and other exotic platings that make each military coin have a distinct appearance.
Some may come across several challenge coins that are very thick when compared to other coins. Most challenge coins are about 3mm in thickness, but these days hobbyists are seeking out coins as thick as 5mm to diversify their displays. The point here is to amass a distinct collection of coins that sparks interest and great conversation.
Designs for such coins are typically stamped into the base material which then creates a relief area on the con base. This area transforms itself into a design that is easily recognizable to a certain group or club. A surge in the popularity of offset printing offers challenge coin collectors to obtain coins that have actual images on one or both sides of the military coin. This technique allows extremely high detail that may not be allowed with standard production techniques.
As you can see, challenge coins are not uniform in nature. Buyers can expect to have the opportunity to grow a collection that varies greatly from one coin to the other. Such collections make great conversation pieces when displayed in an office or hallway, and provide a great opportunity to pass down for generations to come.
When purchasing and looking for challenge coins, think about uniqueness to create a great collection.
Kim Lovelace is an authority in challenge coins and spends spare time writing articles on military news.
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