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This is the old CCA news
page
that I soon plan to change into a blog or something like that.
GovSec a
Success?
- This is the first time I represented Northwest Territorial Mint's
booth... Did it go well?
Find
out
Sleeping With the Enemy?
By Jesse L. Medford, ChallengeCoinAssociation.org
Concord,
NC
- In the
business of selling
Challenge Coins, all of our friends are also our competitors. Our suppliers compete with
us for the same
sales. Our
manufacturers are sending the
same quotes to different people who are all being compared by the same
potential customer.
The
place where most of the Challenge Coin buyers shop is on eBay. Most of the sellers have
the same
suppliers. This
causes a snowball effect
of undercutting your friends and colleagues prices.
You end up auctioning off the coin for less
than it cost you in many cases. These
weren’t always intended to serve as loss leaders either.
To
battle the problem of getting too much inventory and not getting a
good return on investment, a lot of sellers have started selling coins
they
don’t even have possession of.
Once
again, you still have to buy the coin from a competitor when it is
purchased
from you.
So this
leads to the question, are our competitors our friends or
enemies? I’ve
made many friends in this
business. The
owners of Military
Challenge Coin.net, FJG Challenge Coins, Challenge Coin Collecting,
LLC, National
Guard Coins, Just-Coins to name a few.
We all are competitors too.
It is
a fine line from working together to make our stores better, and
working
against each other, trying to make the sale.
So why
is it a problem if a respected company in the business wants help
from other companies? Must
it just be
the small companies helping each other and the big companies left out
of the
loop? I
don’t believe this is so.
However, it seems with some of my peers, that
they think I am sleeping with the enemy for helping out the big guys.
I still
see it as making the industry as a whole, better.
Challenge Coin Association is there for
anybody that needs help buying, selling or collecting Challenge Coins. It doesn’t
matter what the size of your
company is. CCA has
helped hundreds of
collectors learn more about the hobby.
Many sellers have made sales through
networking in
the group. Graphic
artists have gained freelance job
opportunities because of the connections they have made. CCA is there for everybody
because, Challenge
Coin Association, has no enemies.
Challenge
Coin
Therapy
By Jesse L. Medford, ChallengeCoinAssociation.org
Concord,
NC-
As
President of Challenge
Coin Association, I am approached with many touching stories about the
holders
of these coins. Some
are simply heart
wrenching. Take
these for example.
Air Force
OSI
Agent
On eBay I am constantly in the
top three in terms of number of Challenge Coins
listed for sale. One
of the sales I made
a little while ago to a woman in Illinois, was a little more than
routine. She bought
an Air Force Office
of Special Investigations Challenge Coin as a gift for her
dying husband. He
was unconscious and not expected to
live. He is a
former Air Force Commander
and OSI Agent. She
says that OSI is his
“first love”.
With this coin, the hope
was to pick up his spirit.
The Commander’s wife
brought the coin and “challenged” him to get
better. Their
oldest son also brought
his AFOSI coins and “challenged” him as well. The
nurses taped the
coin to the windowsill with his
cards and flowers. All this was while he was
unconscious.
He was in the Critical
Care ICU
for 32 days, then moved to
the step-down unit and then to a pulmonary rehab center to be weaned
from the
ventilator. He is now weaned from the ventilator.
He still has a
long road to go for physical therapy, but his wife believes that all
the
prayers and the Challenge coin made a difference. He is now
doing well
enough to be complaining about the rehab hospital.
When he was told the
story of
his new Challenge Coin, and
again challenged to fully recover, he got tears in his eyes.
He said he
knew something brought him through, but didn't know what or
how. This
time he smiled and clutched the coin in his hand.
He then had to look over every detail to make
sure everything was right. This is typical OSI Agent behavior.
Since then, she has
purchased a
couple more Challenge Coins
from me, to help keep her sons safe.
She
also sent me a thank you, saying the OSI Challenge Coin made a
difference.
Jeff
Gordon Challenge
Coin
NASCAR superstar Jeff
Gordon,
can be found quite often at Carolinas
Medical Center
– NorthEast, Concord,
NC. It is there that the Jeff
Gordon Children’s
Hospital is located. Gordon
grant’s wishes through the Make-A-Wish
Foundation® to
many terminal ill children.
While
taking a tour of the SportCoins, Inc. showroom, also in
Cocord, I saw a display
of the coins Jeff Gordon gives to these kids.
Larry Camp, the Principal owner of SportCoins
had
been explaining to me
about their Challenge Coins showing up on the aftermarket.
When
showing Gordon’s coins to me, Larry explained that he had
been wondering why
they never see these particular coins for sale anywhere. He came to find out that
Gordon’s coins had
been so important to these children during the end of their lives, that
the
parents usually bury them with the coin.
Gregg
Yetter, the General Manager of SportCoins, Inc., stated that the smile
put on these
children’s faces when getting the coin from Gordon, is one of
his biggest joys
he gets from being with this company.
Military Working Dog
Memorial
While
I was working with Kelly Hooker of the Military Working Dog Memorial, and
Pete
Mandarino, award winning Graphic Designer and Air Force Crew Chief, I
had no
idea what an impact this next Challenge Coin would have on people. While tossing around ideas
for this coin to
raise money for the memorial, Kelly provided a silhouette of a Marine
and his K9
that was created by former Marine Brian Rich.
She didn’t know how well this
silhouette
would work on the coin, but Pete
was able to showcase it on the back, with an image of a K9 statue on
the front.
Brian
is the uncle of Corporal Dustin J. Lee, 20,
Quitman, MS. Dustin
was killed while assigned to
Headquarters Battalion, Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany, GA. He was struck by a mortar
in Fallujah, Iraq
and died from those
wounds. His K9 Lex,
was also injured in
the attack and is currently being adopted by the Lee family. It is Dustin and Lex who
are in the
silhouette on the Challenge Coin.
The Military Working Dog
Memorial near Eglin AFB, FL isn’t only
about canines. According
to Kelly, “it
is about the handlers and the families that wait on them to
return
home. The Lee
family has pre-ordered
many copies of this Challenge Coin.
It
is a beautiful piece for them to help continue honoring Dusty with.
Australian
Police
Officer
Ray Bedford, 52, Queensland,
Australia, has recently experienced open
heart surgery and is currently in cardiac rehab.
Ray found out that he had major heart problems
when he had a stroke late last year.
It
was through those tests that Ray was informed that he probably would
not
survive the year if it didn’t get attended to. Ray now has an artificial
heart valve, an aortic
graft and about 6
inches of aorta replaced with an AVG graft.
Up until this point, Ray led a
fairly active lifestyle. He
had been in the Australian Army for six
years and then 21 years in the Australian Federal Police. He took early retirement
to set up his own consulting
business called Leadership Training.
All
of this without a single hint of health problems.
Then in November 2006, Ray had a significant
stroke and his world “turned upside down”.
Ray actually survived two
strokes and memory loss during his ordeal.
Ray’s left side was paralyzed and he
had
major balance problems. “Guts, willpower
and of course the physio”, got Ray through that. He continues to battle a
slight limp and
fatigue.
Why did Ray approach me with
this information? He
wants everyone to know that this health
conditions, “in a roundabout way, led to collecting of
Challenge Coins”.
In rehab, Ray became aware that taking up or practicing a hobby is good
for
you. As a police
officer, he had been
quite an avid badge collector. When
talk
of hobbies surfaced again in rehab, he decided to take up Challenge
Coin
collecting. He
admits it can be quite
expensive, but is enjoying it very much.
Ray’s interests in
challenge coins mirror his background.
He collects law enforcement, intelligence and
government agency Challenge Coins.
He
also likes odd-shaped coins and signed or presentation coins. His latest focus is on
White House related
coins.
Challenge
Coins… Not Just for the Military
By Jesse L. Medford, ChallengeCoinAssociation.org
Concord, NC -
Challenge Coin collectors are always trying to mix another
interest that we have, into our favorite hobby of collecting Challenge
Coins. Some of us
that love these coins, have a
little trouble finding a passion outside of the military, to include
into our
collecting. Some
people may like to
collect items with tigers or wolves.
So
they search around for a military unit that incorporates them into
their
Challenge Coins. Others
people are more
passionate about cars. Or
more
specifically, fast cars.
People that love NASCAR
and
coins, are in luck. SportCoins,
Inc. has created what has been
talked about as the next hot collectible in NASCAR.
No longer is it die-cast cars.
Those are so last year.
Now it is Challenge Coins.
The SportCoins, Inc. partners, all have a
military background. This
is why they
have introduced this favorite military keepsake into sports.
Larry Camp is the
Principal
owner of SportCoins, Inc. He
has been involved in NASCAR marketing for
over 35 years. Larry
is currently involved
with the Raybestos Rookie of the Year program and previously introduced
The
Upper Deck Companies cards to NASCAR.
Prior to his NASCAR days, he was in the Army. Larry's partner/General
Manager, Gregg Yetter
is currently a Major in the Marine Corps Reserve in Raleigh,
NC. He is also Owner/Driver of
Yetter-Campbell Racing. They
started SportCoins
with two other
Marines. Major C.
Derek Campbell, the
other half of Yetter-Campbell racing, and Todd Headington, a former
Staff
Sergeant. Derek is
also in the USMCR and
he is running Accession International, LLC.
Todd is a contractor for the Marine Corps. Juggling those duties
contributed to Derek
and Todd dropping out of the business.
How Sportcoins came
together is
a very interesting story of
good timing and being in the right place at the right time. Derek is responsible for
all those Marine
Corps advertisements you see on tractor trailers.
He was also working on the Marine Corps
sponsorship program in the NASCAR Busch Series.
He co-started Team Race Coin with Gregg in
2002,
with the hopes of it
becoming a retail venture. During
this
time Derek pitched this idea to Larry for Raysbestos.
However nothing materialized of it. Not much longer after
that, Larry went on an
Employer Support of Guard and Reserve tour with Richard Childress and
Mike
Wallace to Germany,
Italy
and Bosnia. The base Commander at
Ramstein Air Base in Germany
presented his Challenge Coin to Richard Childress.
Childress told Camp that they should be doing
these. While
everyone was sleeping on
the flight afterwards, Larry was writing a business plan.
During an upcoming
meeting with
Derek, Larry brought this
business plan with a bunch of Challenge Coins he had quickly amassed. Derek slid a Challenge
Coin over to Larry and
said, "This is something we have to get serious about".
Larry emptied his pouch
of
coins on the table and pulled out
his business plan and said, "I am serious about these".
Todd was running MTM
Challenge
Coins at the time. He
was designing Challenge Coins to be minted
in China
for
military units. Derek
and Gregg knew
Todd from being at Marine Corp Base Quantico together.
MTM has since been sold to Pride
Coins, run by
Todd’s father Dennis. With
his
experience, Todd gained the role of Product Design and Graphics Manager.
The business started slow. SportCoins had a product,
but no distribution. Challenge
Coins were just
beginning to catch
on in the military and SportCoins were trying to introduce it to a
completely
different audience. What
worked in their
favor was, that the NASCAR drivers loved them right off the bat. How do you impress Jeff
Gordon, the man with
every trophy? Apparently
Challenge Coins
do the trick. Also,
teams like Hendrick
and Ganassi use these coins to give as trophies for crew members to
commemorate
every victory. Without a championship or a huge win like Daytona,
crewmembers
had few keepsakes to show for their accomplishments.
Now they have a beautiful coin for each win.
Never before did you see
a
NASCAR driver go to flash his new
coin at Tony Stewart to say "you don't have one of these". Only to get back, "Well,
you don't have
a championship." The
coin will just
have to keep Mike Wallace happy. It
keeps him happy because, he is the only person to have won at Daytona
in three
different levels of NASCAR. He
has the
coin to prove it.
Yes, sports figures faces
have
been adorned on coins for a
long time. I even
have a complete 1997
set of Got-um's NASCAR coins. I
found them
real cheap on eBay while searching for the more popular SportCoins. You may be wondering what
these coins are
worth, being so new. As
the President of
Challenge Coin Association and an Appraiser/Grader of these coins,
people keep
asking me the value of Military Challenge Coins.
And now, I occasionally get questioned about
sports coins. You
may think this is
crazy, but I'm told by Larry that my original 2004 Jimmy Johnson coin
is more
valuable than the original Dale Earnhardt, Jr coin.
This is because they only made 548 for
JJ. They made 4008
for Jr. Well, I
have both on my mantle.
To give you a little bit
of an
idea of the current
market. An
autographed Jimmie Johnson
coin goes for about $75 on eBay for his foundation.
The retail version of the coin goes for about
$25 online. So, the
original 2004 coins
will probably go for about $30 right now.
Like the box of Kevin Harvick prototypes that
I got
off eBay last
year. I turned
around and sold them for
about $30 each to Curtis Heidel, an Assistant Manager at Geary Grain,
Inc. in Junction City,
KS and
former Navy
Sailor. They
would've garnered more if I
had sold them individually. Curtis
is
always looking at SportCoins.com to find these coins
as soon as they come
out. He even boasts
two different types
of Matt Kenseth coins, numbered 004 in his collection.
Like all Challenge Coins,
you
are talking supply and
demand. A 2007
Kasey Kahne coin will
sell more than one from Dave Blaney.
Of
course to meet demand, they are going to make more Kahne coins before
they
break the die. If
you were the lucky dog
to buy the sequentially numbered 0020 Tony Stewart coin, that is going
to be
worth more than his 300th coin of that year. Imagine seeing that one in
the gift shop at
the track. It
happened!
Even Beckett Price Guide
has
gotten involved in valuing
these coins. With
Larry’s contacts
through Upper Deck, he managed to get Beckett to write about
SportCoins,
Inc. They have
since made cost cutting
moves in the company, but say SportCoins will be back in 2008's
installment.
In talking to the
SportCoins
team, I learned that they have
different things that make their accomplishments so special. Gregg loves the way these
coins light up a
child’s face when Jeff Gordon gives them out in the hospital. Meeting General Pace of
the Marine Corps has
also been a highlight. Larry
and Todd
love introducing the next hot collectible to the sport of NASCAR. As well as bringing it to
other sports like
the NFL and NBA. Gregg says working with the
bureaucracy of
NASCAR hasn't been his favorite part.
Todd appreciates the fact that he helped start
something big from the
ground floor. But
he didn't like feeling
disconnected because he lived in Virginia
while the company was in NASCAR country in North
Carolina.
Todd’s favorite
coin
that he designed was the original
Richard Petty coin. It
was SportCoins
best seller, and the design hasn't changed.
The color changes every year though. After 7 years it will be a
full set to commemorate 7
championships. Then
the die will be broken, like the rest of
the coin dies.
In the future you can
continue
to keep a lookout for these
coins as NASCAR is beginning to promote them better in their
merchandise
marketing. Challenge
Coins are
constantly getting more popular in the military and civilians can be
found
collecting them too. As
the word gets
out about Challenge Coins, you will continue to see SportCoins pop up.
DVDs to the Desert Program
By Jesse L. Medford, ChallengeCoinAssociation.org
Concord, NC -
Have you ever thought of how you can give back to those that are
fighting for your country? Sure you have. Everybody
wants to do their part.
In my opinion, typical
care
packages are a nice thought. But they are way too
overwhelming. A lot of it ends up getting thrown away.
I served in Iraq
with
the 102nd Field Artillery out of the Massachusetts Army National Guard.
From experience I can say honestly, the troops really want
DVDs. This helps them unwind after a long day in the hot sun.
Challenge Coin
Association is
the World's Premier Forum for discussing Challenge Coins. I
have been labeled an Icon for my contributions to the Challenge Coin
industry. I now challenges you to help with a few DVDs,
and/or a little bit of money to help mail them.
Details can be found at http://ChallengeCoinAssociation.org/DVDs.html
