Looking for The Best Custom Challenge Coin Maker?
When searching for the best custom challenge coin maker in the market, there are a few things you want to look for.
- How long has this challenge coin maker been in business?
- How long does it take on average for this challenge coin maker to create your design, make your coins, and deliver your coins to you?
- Do you need a finished challenge coin design, or can the custom challenge coin maker do that for you? Do they charge for the design and make you pay before seeing anything?
- What is the minimum quantity this custom challenge coin maker will produce?
- Does the manufacturer have a reputation (good or bad) documented by a third party? Do they stand behind their products and provide a guarantee for their custom coin work?
What is a challenge coin?
A challenge coin is usually a metal coin or medallion that bears the insignia of an organization, an emblem or logo. These custom medallions are usually carried by the members of that group/organization. Traditionally, challenge coins were used by the military and displayed by service men and women to prove exclusive membership, and to enhance the units’ morale and camaraderie. The custom coins would be carried by the recipient service men and women and displayed to prove membership in an exclusive unit or that the individual was part of a specific mission or campaign. In order to get quality coins, you need a custom challenge coin maker that has knowledge and experience creating custom awards that transform meaning into metal that lasts a lifetime.
Why use a challenge coin? How?
Although challenge coin history has been shrouded in mystery and legend, today challenge coins are taking on a new life with a variety of novel uses while still maintaining a strong connection to the original challenge coin tradition of being a meaningful symbol. More and more people today use custom challenge coins to award accomplishments to their various teams, units or departments. Whether celebrating a rank promotion, sales goal, amazing customer service, or marking a milestone for years of commitment, people are finding different reasons to award custom challenge coins to their teams. As a market leading custom challenge coin maker since 2000, we’ve made millions of custom challenge coins for all types of organizations, government agencies, clubs, businesses and individuals. From Air Force challenge coins to custom police challenge coins, fire department coins, or challenge coins for breweries, if you can think of it, we’ve probably made a coin for it.
Now why would we claim to be the best custom challenge coin maker in the market?
Service is the bar used when comparing custom challenge coin makers.
Signature Coins has been making custom challenge coins since 2000, and one of our biggest investments over the last two decades has been dedicated to serving our customers — better, faster, and with more options. While many of our competitors outsource their labor to foreign countries or employ minimum-wage workers, we maintain a 100% American workforce for sales, customer service, and design, staffed by professional salespeople and designers. We want to make the best custom coins and provide the best experience to our customers. We can only do that by investing in our team and hiring only the best.
We have always provided free design and artwork services.
Signature Coins has designed custom challenge coins specifically for production for more than two decades now. We’ve had the pleasure of working with clients in all sectors and industries. Our art department brings years of design and production experience that directly translates to a better custom product for our clients.
We have a ton of creative customers that love to provide their own coin artwork or designs. Our art department makes sure that your artwork meets minimum production requirements and color gamut for enamel fills. These checks are free of charge, but ensure you will get an amazing challenge coin once produced. We also advise on how the design will translate to the finished custom coin once in-hands.
Don’t have a custom challenge coin design?
Signature Coins’ custom coin designers have over 100 years of cumulative challenge coin design experience. Our staff of artists includes designers who have worked for Walt Disney and on AAA video games including Call of Duty. We’re ready to help you turn your idea into a one-of-a-kind coin you can be proud of.
The process of starting your custom challenge coin design is simple. You can start by submitting a napkin drawing of your ideas, a written description and some images, or download our design guide and template. Even if you can’t draw a stick figure, you will be surprised at how easy it is to send us your ideas.
When you request artwork, you will receive a free quote and artwork from us. Other companies charge a fee to create challenge coin artwork. We understand that designing an important commemorative award can be tough, so all proofs, quotes and revisions from Signature Coins are completely free.
How about the speed and quality of your custom challenge coin maker?
At Signature Coins, we are able to manufacture complex shapes and cutouts in our custom challenge coins, that includes bottle openers and multi-tools. The speed of production depends on the various options chosen for your custom challenge coin design. That said, our average production time for custom coins generally beats out our competitor’s rush options. On average from start to finish, making a challenge coin usually takes 10 to 14 days.
We offer a variety of custom challenge coin options that can help your custom coin stand out. From different edges, different plating options, complex shapes and cutouts, we have made it all. If you can think of it, we can make it!
Looking for a bit more detail about how challenge coins are produced? You can take a look at our Custom Challenge Coin Production Process video below.
When looking for a custom challenge coin maker, what are the minimum quantities to look for?
If you’re looking for custom challenge coins, there are minimum quantity order requirements (unfortunately). We have a few options if you just need a few coins though. We have a couple of stock and personalized coins that have no minimums and we are committed to increasing the number of options offered.
For custom coin orders, we have to machine custom coin molds before we can begin production, which is time-consuming and takes a lot of resources on our end. We also invest a lot of human resources in our design process — neither of which is feasible for single or low-quantity coin orders. Due to the inherent costs of designing and manufacturing custom challenge coins, the lowest number of coins we can make in a single run is 50. You’ll find a better price per coin when ordering in larger quantities than our minimum — even bumping the quantity to just 100 coins leads to a dramatic drop in unit price (think 2x as many coins for only 20–30% more in total cost).
At Signature Coins, we create an amazing custom design specific to each and every customer’s needs. We strive to be the best custom challenge coin maker on the market and are proud to continue that effort with new personalizable coins. With personalizable challenge coins, we give our customers the opportunity to order single or small orders of coins that have been beautifully designed and produced but with a personalized message text or team colors. You can see some personalized challenge coin options here.
Checking the quality and materials your challenge coin maker uses
How do you ensure you are working with a quality custom challenge coin maker?
One way you can check the quality of your custom challenge coin maker is to look over their reviews, and see both negative and positive feedback. Like many companies, all challenge coin makers will have some good and bad reviews. Signature Coins has helped hundreds of thousands of clients from all over the world. We let our customer reviews speak for themselves.
Another very clear way to check the quality of your custom challenge coin maker is to see if they have a sample pack of custom coins you can purchase and inspect with your own hands. At Signature Coins we provide an assorted sample pack of custom challenge coins that you can purchase. They are chosen at random and often show various custom coin upgrades and enamels. From there you can see (and feel) the quality and craftsmanship put into each and every custom coin project we work on.
It’s one thing to say we’re the best challenge coin maker. We stand behind our product fully and offer a written 100% Quality and Craftsmanship Guarantee. In addition to having quick production and the industry’s best customer service and art teams, we also guarantee the quality and craftsmanship of every coin order we produce.
We love custom challenge coins! In order to even better serve our customers, we have added a huge library of videos and support articles to help you get the answers and ideas you need to make your next custom challenge coin project a success.
A challenge coin is more than a simple keepsake, it represents the tradition, pride and values of your team and organization.
If you have questions about your next custom challenge coin design, you know where to go. When you are looking for the best custom challenge coin maker in the market, #ChooseSignature.
If you’re ready to make your own coin, contact us today and we’ll get started on your first free proof and quote immediately. Within as little as 48 hours, you could be well on your way to the simplest custom coin ordering process on the market. We have a challenge coin design template for anyone who wants to sketch out their ideas and take detailed notes on their artwork, but it’s not required. But if one of the more artistically inclined members of the team wants to sketch something out, it’s definitely a great tool.
Ready To Get Started?
When you’re ready, use our order form to place your challenge coin order.
