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How a sentence becomes a brass coin

You talk, the assistant designs, you see the result as metal, and a fiber laser carves it into a solid brass blank. Here is each step, and what happens behind it.

  1. Step 1: Tell the assistant what you want

    Start with a subject, a style and any words you want on it. The assistant works like an art director who knows what survives on a 40 mm coin: one clear subject, bold shapes, lettering big enough to read.

    Before it makes anything with words on it, it repeats the exact wording back to you to confirm.

    You said: A cabin in the pines under a crescent moon. It’s for my parents.
    Assistant said:

    Lovely. Should any words go around the edge, like a family name or a year?

    You said: “Hartley Cabin” on top and “est. 1996” at the bottom.
    Assistant said:

    To confirm the wording: HARTLEY CABIN along the top and EST. 1996 along the bottom, in capitals like a coin legend. Shall I go ahead?

  2. Step 2: See it as metal, not as a picture

    We work out the exact depths the laser will cut for each revision and show it as a 3D relief at true size. Turn it, zoom in, and move the light across it the way you would tilt a coin under a lamp.

    Then ask for changes: a bigger moon, less detail, a different border. Every revision is kept, so you can always go back. The assistant also checks the spelling of every word on every revision and redoes any it gets wrong.

    The first 3 revisions are free. After that, one $5 deposit lets you keep going as long as you like, and it comes off your order.

    Revision 1
    Revision 2
    Revision 3
    3D previews of three revisions of one design.
  3. Step 3: Choose a depth and a quantity

    Low, medium or high relief: deeper carving throws stronger shadows and takes longer on the laser. The price updates as you go, bulk discounts apply across the whole order, and you see an estimated ship date based on the orders already ahead of yours.

    Pay through Stripe’s secure checkout. We never see your card details.

    • Low relief
    • Medium relief
    • High relief
    One design at each depth, with the cut drawn to scale in a 3 mm thick coin.
  4. Step 4: We engrave it, check it and ship it

    We turn your design into a laser file, set a solid brass blank in place, and the laser carves the relief layer by layer: about 1 h 30 min for a medium-relief coin. We run the laser up to 14 hours a day, one coin at a time, and check every piece before it ships.

    You get an email when engraving starts, another with tracking when it ships, and one if the ship date moves.

    Ø 40 mm
    Solid brass, 3 mm thick. The laser carves the relief into the metal rather than printing on it: up to 0.40 mm deep in medium relief, drawn here to scale.
    Ship date up front
    From our laser queue, before you pay
    Tracked shipping
    All 50 states and DC

What works at 40 mm

The assistant steers toward designs that read well in metal, and the 3D preview shows the truth before you pay.

Works well

  • One clear subject
  • Bold silhouettes and outlines
  • Short words in capitals
  • Borders, beads, wreaths, stars

Gets lost at this size

  • Photographic detail and soft shading
  • Long sentences or tiny print
  • Thin hairlines
  • Many small subjects

Minimum letter height: To be confirmed after test burns

Works well: A bold silhouette

Gets lost: A photo’s soft shading

Works well: A few big words

Gets lost: A long message in small print

3D previews at true size, on the left what reads well, on the right what gets lost.

Ready when you are