Challenge Coins on a Budget. (REALLY?)

We have been fielding inquiries about challenge coins, and with the current cost of brass, we have been going deaf from the sound of peoples' jaws hitting the floor. The usual question is: "What do brass challenge coins cost?" That's like asking, "How long is a piece of wire?" The more appropriate questions to ask is: "I am not a close friend of Paris Hilton, so can you help me out with challenge coins on a budget?"

Challenge coins do not HAVE to be brass (which, yes, has become very costly.) My friend Dan Arakawa, with whom we do our majority of coin and pin business, suggests zinc alloy coins.

Zinc alloy is not aluminum; it does not make a namby-pamby "tink" sound when it hits a table. As a substitue for brass, instead of using the traditional spin-casting technique with cheap lead-based metal, Dan uses a super high-grade zinc alloy material in a rubber injection mold. This technique creates the same high quality look of traditional brass coins, but the cost is lower. The only difference is a barely perceptible difference in weight between a zinc and a brass coin.

And if you want a cutout inside your design, with the zinc coin they are free; with brass the charge for a cutout is $40.

Included in pricing are two-dimensional molds for both sides, a high polish or antique finish, and FREE artwork from your sketches. (If you have artwork already, Dan is happy to create the coin from that.)

500 of the 1 1/2" diameter coins at 3 mm thickness (about an eighth of an inch) are $2.86 each (plus tax and shipping, of course.) You can add up to four inlay colors for an additional 20 cents per coin per side. Again, interior holes are free.

Gotta move out those Jackets

What the Slow Economy Means to You

Promotional Products is an interesting business. It's sorta like being a dairy farmer. When the cows mooo that it's milking time, ya gotta milk them. When clothing manufacturers receive their raw materials... the stuff they contracted for a while back... they have to make the clothes and move them out. This is especially true with cotton, as I have explained before. That's why we get these "flash deals" on things like T-shirts -- sales that last only a few days.

One of our jacket suppliers has made the offer of discounts approaching 70% on some excellent clothing. Embroidery is available. These are not cheesy jackets but the kind you and your club or group would be proud to wear. This is a "While Supplies Last" offer, and when someone inquires, we call and find out the supply situation.

Remember, too, that Time can be your Friend. The earlier you make your decision, the better. Just click on the pic to be able to read about it.

Special Promotional Products Offers

We are receiving special manufacturers' offers every day. Among them are price specials on T-shirts of five gross (720) or more. But the T-shirt specials are good for only three days. If you are going to need T-shirts in several months, you can buy them now and warehouse them until you need them printed. We can transship direct to you, and you can have a local screen printer complete the job.

Also Bic Pens has some GREAT special offers right now, but most end April 30. If they do what they usually do, they will have a new round of specials during late spring and summer.

Looking for something REALLY CHEAP. Why?

There are things out there besides cheap pens

It's kinda humorous, the "Can you help me" calls we get. See, we are promotional products consultants first, then sales people. The majority of people call us saying they need help, then saying their minds are already made up. "Really inexpensive pens" is what we hear most often.

We joke when we ask, "You mean the kind you steal from a motel?" Our bank gave us a pen which, at the quantity they purchased them, cost about 11 cents. Cheap? Yes. Leave an impression of a solid financial institution? Not really.

The idea of a promotional item is to leave a warm, fuzzy memory of you FIRST, then to increase your visibility and hopefully broaden your customer base (or base of friends; many folks have called us for awards and for wedding mementos.) So "really inexpensive pens" is not always the answer.

There are many thousands of inexpensive items out there which are NOT stick pens. Of those items there are hundreds of variations on a theme. When you seek promotional items, let your promotional goods purveyor HELP YOU! That's what we do.