Personal Challenge Coins.

I made this challenge coin for my ship a few years ago. It still is one of my favorite and most cherished. I have made 1,000's of coins since then and always look back at it as a reference to keep creating some killer coins.

I have seen many personal coins over the last decade, now whether or not it is counted as a command, CSM, or 1SG is where the debate will come in. I have seen and received many coins that have the issuers name on the coin from SMA, COS, GEN CMD, CSM on down to the company CDR/1SG, even PLT SGT/LT coins with the individual names of each on them. I have even seen coins that were company or platoon issued with members of a team listed on them as well. So to answer your question, no you are not alone, now you may be alone if you came out of pocket for these coins to be produced as I know that for the most part to have a coin made you must order the dye and a minimum most times of 100-200 coins to have it done. So to add to your question did you pay for these out of pocket or find a way for it to processed through the PAO channels to pay for it? Just curious.

I was only 1LT I knew who made his own company command coins. I did for my company command when I was a CPT too. Helps as you said recognize more people as the LTCs and their CSMs and above cannot be everywhere and they have a limit on their coins that the military will pay for.

As an incentive to strive for excellence on the APFT, my 1SG created a coin of his own to award to soldiers that score 250 or above. After seeing the first round of coins go out, I have been motivated to earn a 250 coin.

Who did you use to make your coins? I have seen several ones out there like challenge coins r us.

Oops. Repeat

Check this one out. Fox had a contest where NCOs could report everything that was wrong with the pilot of Enlisted ( I had a full page, size 12 font) and they would send you a coin. Here is said coin. It is now my favorite. :)

<p>SSG, you are not the only person to fund their own coins. The Chief of the Mess at my last unit and the school chief for the Coast Guard's law enforcement rating school; the LANT Area CMC and the Senior Enlisted Reserve Advisor to the SECDEF among others all&nbsp;developed their own coin. All&nbsp;figure prominently in the coin box in my office at home.</p><p><br></p><p>I would also offer that one of my units had a similar situation with regard to awards. Our parent&nbsp;command for some extended time refused to process awards submitted through the food chain.&nbsp;Concurrently, I discovered&nbsp;one of my guys&nbsp;was a phenomenal artist; gave him some ideas about what I wanted on the coin; and left him alone to develop a two sided unit coin. We the (the senior enlisted) found a vendor; paid them to have the coins manufactured with serial numbers on them; and then developed an accompanying certificate with the coin graphic superimposed and our best Davy Jones Locker verbiage on it. When we began giving them to our crew, we made a big deal out of it; formation in front of the unit; told what the member had done to earn the coin; asked for them to speak to the crew once we were finished.&nbsp;A chief (E7 &amp; up) had to recommend to the chiefs' mess (five most senior enlisted leaders) that a member had earned a coin, and a vote of thumbs up or down determined who got a coin. </p><p><br></p><p>The crew found out&nbsp;what went into the coin; the certificate; and the recommendation. It was a shot in the arm for morale, and it wasn't uncommon to&nbsp;find the coin certificates displayed in individual work spaces. </p><p><br></p><p>Good on you for doing what you do. That's leadership at its best...;-) Don't let anybody give your crap for being a good leader.</p>

I really like the intent here. While i stand by some of the awards system for responsibility and achievement ( I have realized that a big part of compensation is how bad your worse case scenario is) i agree that awards are rarely pushed up or down for individual achievement, especially at the junior enlisted level. (cue Oprah saying "EVERYBODY GETS AN AAM!")&nbsp;<div><br></div><div>Like Sun Tzu asks regarding which army will when in a conflict "&nbsp;<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 204);">In which army is there the&nbsp;</span><a name="46" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 204);"></a><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 204);">greater constancy both in reward and punishment?"&nbsp;</span></div>

I have seen personal coin literally, it had the individual persons name on the coin along with rank and unit as part of the dye for the coin. That was a pretty penny for you to put out on your own, I know when I was a retention NCO and a recruiter, it was in our budget, but I also had to do the workup, get the prices and get the command approval before I could order them, and the initial dye price was the big chunk and then the minimum order of coins was the other piece of the money as well. So I applaud your effort as I know it wasn't cheap.