Choosing The Right Metal Style For Your Challenge Coins

When you’re ready to order custom challenge coins, you have a range of choices to consider. You have complete control over your design, so you’re free to choose your coins’ size, shape, color, options and other factors.

Selecting all the right elements for your coins depends on your design, and your coins’ intended purpose and recipients. Military coins, for example are likely to have a more classical, formal appearance than coins that promote a brand or logo.

One of the most important decisions you’ll make is the metal plating style of your coin. This will have the greatest bearing on the appearance of your design.

While choosing among all the possible options can appear daunting, it’s not hard to order great-looking coins if you keep a few simple factors in mind. Your coin provider can guide you to the right choice for your specific needs.

The Origins of Challenge Coins

There’s no definitive record of how challenge coins began, but rather several apocryphal accounts that might or might not be true. According to the most popular story of the origin of what we know as challenge coins today, the first military coins were crafted of solid bronze.

A wealthy lieutenant gave them to each of the men in his Army Air Corps squad in World War I. When one of them was shot down behind enemy lines, and escaped, the only identification he had was the coin, with which he was able to prove his American identity to French troops who escorted him safely back to his unit.

The Basics of Modern Challenge Coins

Although you generally won’t find solid bronze coins today, let’s take a look at the different metal plating styles and the best option for your next order.

One of the most popular challenge coin styles is the traditional die struck coin.This is the basic style most commonly seen on military challenge coins. Simple, classic, and price friendly, die struck coins are always a solid option.

While it will add to the price of your coins, choosing a specific metal style, along with either a polished or antiqued finish can take your design to a higher level of distinction. 

Die struck coins feature a combination of raised polished metal and sandblasted recessed metal surfaces. This creates a clean contrast but can create light tones on the texts and other details that can be made more visible with the right plating choice.

You can choose from a range of metal plating options, including gold, silver,  copper or black nickel. Let’s consider the potential uses for each of those.

Polished Gold and Silver

Polished gold and silver are the most popular plating choices for custom challenge coins. Both offer a bright, reflective look that gives your coins a brilliance and sense of drama. They’re commonly used on many types of coins from military to corporate and commemorative coins. 

Popular uses for polished coins include years-of-service coins for employees, academic awards and, with the appropriate colors, corporate coins. It’s a bold look that stands out.

Antiqued Gold and Silver

Because polished gold and silver coins are so reflective, they can obscure fine details of your design. An antiqued finish gives your coins higher visual contrast and a more subtle look that lets the fine details of your design stand out. This greatly improves the legibility of text, for example.

Antique plating is especially suitable for 3D coins. The more subdued look makes it easier to appreciate the raised and recessed aspects of 3D designs.

Antiqued gold and silver coins add a formal elegance that’s well suited to historical commemoration coins, military service awards and more.

Black Nickel

Black nickel offers a sophisticated look for modern design elements and features outstanding contrast. If you want to reproduce a logo or other image with bold, bright colors, this style offers a dramatic look that’s impossible to miss. It’s a sleek contemporary style that’s sure to be eye-catching.

Choose The Right Finish for Your Design

Consider which finish will look best with your coin design and intended purpose. You might choose, for example, a different color for a length of service award coin than you would for a military one. Your coin provider can help you choose the best finish for your specific design.

Adding Color to Stand Out

While the basic die struck coin style is quite attractive on its own, it’s a good idea to consider adding color to your design. The reason is simple. When there is no color in the die struck coin, the combination of raised polished metal and sandblasted recessed metal can create, in some situations, light tones.

That can make text and other small details challenging to read. In that situation, an antique finish can increase legibility, and really make those details visible on your coin.

Most coin providers allow you to add up to seven different colors to your coins at no extra charge. That gives you plenty of flexibility to represent your unit, company or nonprofit organization in your own unique way.

Choose the Right Metal by Choosing the Right Supplier

Choosing the right metal style isn’t hard. At ChallengeCoins4Less, our talented team of graphic artists and designers who will help you create the perfect custom challenge coin for your specific needs. If you’re not sure which finish is best for your coins, count on us. Our team will make sure your coins are the perfect look and style for your occasion.

We’re happy to walk you through the entire process from creating your design to final production. With 20 years’ experience creating coins for everyone from the branches of the U.S. Armed Forces to corporations and individuals throughout the world, we’re confident we’ll satisfy even the most demanding expectations for custom coin quality, value and service.

If you’d like to find out more, call us toll free at (855) 272-8451, or email us at [email protected]. We’re here to serve all your custom challenge coin needs. Let us show you how easy, fast and fun ordering challenge coins can be.