Unique and Oddly Shaped Bottle Opener Coins

Necessity Meets Functionality and Design

A functional bottle opener is one of the most popular design features our customers request in their challenge coins. This is an easy enough request to fulfill even though it does come with its own set of specific considerations that don’t need to be made with standard challenge coin designs. 

Whether you opt for an internal or an external bottle opener, choosing to dedicate any amount of your coins’ surface area to a section that performs a function means having to design around that section. Since these order have no choice but to have a section cut out of them to make room for the bottle opener, a number of customers choose to create cut-to-shape coins to better incorporate the bottle opener section into the overall design of the coin. Other customers create artwork around the bottle opener to suit its function. If you’re thinking about incorporating a bottle opener into your challenge coin design, here are a few ideas of how best to accomplish that. 

Common Considerations for Internal Bottle Openers

Internal bottle openers will always require a cutout and an angled tooth to function. Making use of cutouts for your design means that sections of the coin are, in essence, blank. For this coin, the customer decided to go with a key shape for the coin and placed the bottle opener cutout into the base of the key so that the important information could be included on the shaft. 

As you might imagine, shaping a coin with an internal bottle opener like a key isn’t the most common design choice we see. Instead, one of the things a lot of customers do to better incorporate their internal bottle opener is create a design that looks like a skull or a face and then put the bottle opener in the mouth. 
Designs like these make use of teeth and open mouth imagery to perfectly blend in the functionality of the bottle opener with the visual design of open mouths and teeth. 
If teeth aren’t really your thing, you can always consider something else totally out of left field for the shape of your coin. This one made use of the grim reaper image and placed the bottle opener into the natural cutout between the blade of his scythe and its handle.

Fun Shapes With External Bottle Openers

With external bottle openers, the space dedicated to the bottle opener in found on the outer edge of the coin. This means it’s easier to create a traditional medallion shaped coin without having to dedicate as much space to the bottle opener itself. It also means that you can have fun coming up with a specific cut-to-shape design that can either hide the bottle opener in plain sight or better accentuate the functionality. 

It’s not as obvious when you look at it, but the back fins of the turtle-shaped coin above actually function as a bottle opener. In fact, shaping a coin like an animal and dedicating some aspect of the animal’s outline to the creation of a bottle opener is rather common. 

If animals aren’t really your style, how about coins shaped like weapons? These coins were cut to the shape of a grenade and handguns respectively. See if you can spot the external bottle opener incorporated into each design. 

Another easy way to go is to get a coin in the shape of a state or country that’s important to you and work the external bottle opener into the natural features of the outline.

The Possibilities Are Endless

For years, we’ve worked with customers looking to blend the functionality of their coins in with the overall design. Having a challenge coin that operates as a bottle opener is cool, but having one with a hidden or disguised bottle opener is even cooler. 

If you’re inspired by any of the coins you see here, let us know and our art team will pull elements from the design to include in your order. Or, if you have a more unique idea for incorporating a bottle opener into the design of your challenge coin, let our sales team know and they’ll be sure to figure out a way to bring your vision to life.