posted 09-28-2021 02:11 PM               

These started out as regular copper medallions. Each one was first polished to give it a shinier surface. Normally I polish medallions using a dremel tool, but in this case I didn't want a uniformly shiny finish. Armstrong's gold medallion has a hand-polished look. The raised surfaces look shinier than the surface below, and there's an aged look to it. I wanted to get closer to that, so I polished these by hand, focusing on the raised surfaces. That left them with a slightly "foggier" look on the bottom and in nooks. It also left some of the black aging on the medallions, which shines through in places. So they have an intentionally imperfect look to them, as they're meant to resemble flown medallions rather than mint replicas. After being plated, each one was carefully cleaned to remove any fingerprints, and then resealed in its original case.

Photos of the finished medallions can be seen here. It was very hard to photograph them, as they either looked too shiny or too dark. So I tried to take some from multiple angles, with and without a flash.

posted 10-06-2021 04:28 PM               

That is a good point, which I hadn't considered. For the discerning collector, I think it will be obvious that this is not one of the solid gold coins, for four reasons. First, the gold coins were only produced in .5 oz sizes, and this is a 1 oz coin. Second, the gold/silver coins have their details stamped into the rim, while these copper ones do not. Third, the gold coins have a highly polished design, while these are made to look more aged. And fourth, these come in standard cases/packaging, while the gold coins come in NGC slabs and fancy packaging.

So if somebody tried to pass these off as solid gold medallions, I'd hope that anyone willing to spend that amount would be able to see that immediately. But I'd hate for someone to get scammed who didn't know the difference. However, I don't know how to do that without damaging the medallions. If anyone has any advice, I'd be amenable to it.

posted 10-06-2021 09:10 PM               

Currently, in the field of numismatics there is a plague of counterfeit NGC and PCGS slabs containing counterfeit and altered coins. So the potential is there for an unscrupulous actor to take one of these gold plated medals, put it in a fake slab and sell it on eBay or some other digital marketplace.

posted 10-06-2021 10:08 PM               

And of course, if there are malicious people out there, then cutting off my supply won't stop them. Almost every jeweler in the world offers gold-plating services. So if I were to stop selling these, all they'd have to do is buy a copper medallion on eBay, take it to their local jeweler, and get an identical plating. It'd actually be a better option than buying my "aged" ones, because they could get it polished to a mirror finish.

But despite that, I'd rather lose all of this money then see someone else spend thousands of dollars on one of these that was fraudulently advertised. So I'll try to find a solution. I may be able to get a jeweler to engrave something on the edge.

posted 10-07-2021 04:16 AM               

Best of luck.