Introducing Kids to Coin Collecting

I’ve got a bit of a conundrum. When creating a Penny Portrait, it’s fairly easy to make pennies shinier (any acid will do the trick) but I’ve yet to find a way to artificially speed up the hands of time and make pennies darker…

Ideally, for a Penny Portrait you need a lot of chocolaty dark colored pennies but they can often be tricky to find.  It would be fantastic if there were a way to speed up the chemical process that causes pennies to darken naturally.

So if there any students/teachers/hobbyists out there who want to take on the challenge, I’ve got a $50 prize and a free Penny Portrait Kit for you. I can imagine this would be the ideal project for a student who is stuck trying to figure out a unique and clever science fair project.

Here are the rules:

1. Only safe, household chemicals/materials may be used.

2. The process should take no longer than 2 weeks to transform a shiny penny into a darker colored penny. (Obviously, the less time it takes the better.)

3. I’m looking for the end result to be a dark brown penny. (Not black) See the image above as an example of what I’m looking for.

4. You need to be able to darken a bunch of pennies. (The poster needs about 300.)

That’s about it.  First person to e-mail me a solution at info@PennyPortrait.com wins the prize!  (I’ll post the winner in the comments below.  If no winner has been posted, the contest is still open.)

One thought I’ve had is that since we know acids like vinegar can reverse the chemical reaction that causes a penny to turn dark, perhaps the opposite of an acid (a base) can be used to speed up the oxidation process?
Additionally, there are some products on the market that are used to darken copper: Brimstone Coin Darkener, Deller’s Darkener, and I know folks in the jewelry trade use something called “Liver of Sulfur”.  One ingredient all these have in common is sulfur, so maybe that can be a starting point.  I know egg whites are a great source of sulfur, so something to think about…

I’m including a link to a great article on why copper coins change color to get you started on your research:

Why do Copper Coins Change Colors?

Even better, we have an ACTUAL Penny Portrait on display in both locations.  (Because, let’s face it, once you see one in person, you just need to get one.)   Sales have already been above expectations and the gift shop has decided to showcase our product and give away (yet another) completed Penny Portrait at the World’s Fair of Money next week in Philadelphia.  Swing by their booth and enter for a chance to win your very own copper creation. (Pictured here.)

In the meantime, in honor of our most recent vendor, here is an incredible 1940 video on how pennies are made.

This is the most recent of a number of interviews I’ve done.  Not too long ago I was featured on Chris Guillebeau’s “Side Hustle School” Episode 54.  Chris is a best selling author of such notable books as “The $100 Startup”.

Penny Portraits of Abe Lincoln Turn Into $40,000

I was also mentioned on Nick Loper’s “Side Hustle Nation”

310: 10 Creative Side Hustles that Make Real Money

And last but not least, an interview from when I was just getting this product off the ground from one of my favorite personal finance bloggers – Jonathan at My Money Blog.

Entrepreneur Interview: Maury of PennyPortrait.com

Always happy to chat with anyone about unique business ideas and hopefully pass along a little of what I’ve learned from this crazy little side project.

-Maury

PennyPortrait.com of course

Vat19.com

Amazon Prime

Uncommon Goods

Hobby Town USA

The Money Museum (Colorado Springs, CO)

The Ford Theater Museum

The Gettysburg Museum

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum (Springfield, IL)

The Lincoln Museum (Hodgenville, KY)

The Newseum (Washington, DC)

The What on Earth Catalog

Contemporary Art Museum of Houston

This was probably the single hardest question I faced when starting this crazy little side project. I had already created the 18×24 poster image and printed out a sample MVP (Minimum Viable Product). To print out one poster cost about $30, but it was just going to be used as a proof of concept to make sure that this crazy idea worked. In order for this to be a profitable business, I needed to get the price of each poster way down, and that meant ordering in bulk.

So, how does one estimate how many people want portraits of Abe Lincoln made out of pennies hanging on their wall? I knew my mom would want one, so that was a start, but beyond that my guesstimate got fuzzy. I of course, thought they were pretty cool, but I also like magic and bonsai trees, so I’m probably not exactly the best predictor of mass market demands.

Up until this point, I had sunk maybe a hundred or so dollars into this side venture. Just to send my poster to the industrial printer, however, was going to cost upward of $500 in setup charges. My little crazy side hustle just got real!

If I recall correctly, the first 1,000 posters were going to cost me about $900, and 2,000 posters would be $1,200. I had no idea how much space 2,000 posters would take up, but I figured if I was doing this thing I was doing it and opted to go with 2,000. Worst case scenario I could hide them under the beds throughout my house. It worked out well, and thankfully, there was demand for this wacky little project. It took a while, but after a year or so I was getting close to the end of my print run.

Enter Kickstarter

The launch of Kickstarter significantly changed the way crazy ideas like mine get off the ground. People could create an MVP or proof of concept and use Kickstarter to gauge demand so they didn’t get stuck with…. oh… 1.6 million penny images under their bed.

I was super jealous that this hadn’t been around when I launched my product. As my print run was coming to an end, I decided I’d approach the Kickstarter community to see if I could help raise money (and interest) for my next round of posters. Kickstarter was making headlines and I thought I might be able to piggyback off the excitement.

The only way to really learn about doing a Kickstarter project is to do one. I was far from a social media master and didn’t have a giant twitter following I could reach out to. The video is a big part of any Kickstarter project and as I had a broadcasting/advertising degree so I knew I could handle that aspect of it. (Obligatory Kickstarter video below.)

Being from the Midwest, I’m pretty frugal with money and not the type of guy who would feel comfortable asking for a handout. One of the mistakes I made with this project was I wanted to reach my funding goal before spreading the word to any of my friends and family. I have such great friends, I knew a lot of them would buy one just to support me and my crazy adventures. I didn’t really want anyone to feel obligated to do that. Once I hit my funding goal, I could feel comfortable spreading the word without feeling like I was asking for help.

In hindsite, this was the wrong approach. The initial interest in a Kickstarter project really determines where it will show up when people are searching the Kickstarter site, or who Kickstarter chooses to highlight on their front page. Projects with early momentum tend to “go viral” and really snowball. Now don’t get me wrong, my project did pretty well. I surpassed my goal and raised $1,874 for my second print run (2,500 units), but I kind of feel like it could have gone even better if I knew what I was doing.

That’s sort of the way business works though. You just keep stumbling forward and hope more good surprises happen than bad ones. Since then, I did another print run of 3,000 bringing the total number of Penny Portrait kits manufactured to 7,500! If everyone who orders a kit completes it that would be a total of $63,450 in pennies hanging on people’s walls.

Crazy little side project indeed…

Admittedly, it was 12 feet tall, weighed 400 pounds and used 24,500 pennies. Congratulations to Richard Schlatter of Battle Creek, MI who won a $200K Grand Prize for his penny inspired depiction of our 16th President.  (The top hat in your photo is a nice touch Rich…)

So it appears I’ve been doing it all wrong. I’ve been selling templates to aspiring artists to create their very own copper creations of Abe earning a few bucks at a time when the real cash is in art shows!

So who in their right mind gives out $200K for such precise penny placement?

Apparently, the folks in Grand Rapids, MI hold a contest every year called ArtPrize which is open to any artist in the world working in any medium – even pennies.  The top prize is $200K, but nearly a half a million dollars was given out in prize money this year.  Art is exhibited in and around Grand Rapids and voted on by the citizens.  in 2016, they had nearly 1,500 works exhibited at 170 venues.  The ArtPrize website claims it now attracts over 665,000 visitors, making it the most attended public art event in the world.  (Though admittedly, when the venue is essentially the city, it’s a little easier to claim some lofty attendance figures.)

The good news for Rich is that his fame and fortune aren’t quite over. Ripley’s Believe It or Not has apparently shown interest in purchasing the portrait for one of their museums although the city of Grand Rapids has dibbs on displaying it for the next year.  (Note to self, reach out to Ripley’s to see if they’d be interested in carrying Penny Portraits in their gift shops!)

Fans of this website often send me links to penny inspired creations made by other artists. (Okay, most of them are from my mom.)  When passing along portraits of Abe in particular, folks often ask if I get upset that people stole my idea.  Well, the truth is, creating a portrait of Abe Lincoln out of pennies was hardly my idea and is hardly new.

Back in 2007, I came across an article regarding a father and son in Florida who created a portrait of Abe to display at the son’s school. It was a rather large creation and only used two shades of pennies. The graphic artist in me felt I could improve upon their method and went about creating a smaller 18 x 24-inch poster using four shades of pennies to create added detail.  Many hours and versions later I had a product I thought others might enjoy putting together and the Penny Portrait Kit was born!  The funny thing is, the father and son claimed their inspiration for the portrait came from seeing a similar creation eight years earlier at a place you’ll never believe –  a Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum!

And now a word from our sponsor.

Well not really, but I would be remiss when talking about giant portraits of Abe Lincoln made out of pennies if I didn’t give a shout out to one of my favorite vendors, Vat19.com.  You see, the fun-loving folks at Vat19.com love to promote the “curiously awesome” products they sell in unique and wacky ways. Fortunately for me, one of their favorite products to ballyhoo has been my Penny Portrait Kit.

I first discovered Vat19.com’s rather interesting promotional flair when someone sent me a link to a video of Penny Portraits being sold by shirtless men.  I was completely unaware they were even making a promotional video for my product and was blown away by the production quality.  Prior to seeing the video, I had only received one small test order from them for a mere 12 units.

Not to rest on their laurels, a few years and over 1000 units later the folks at Vat19.com decided to up their game and create a giant portrait of Abe out of nearly 15,000 pennies.  Now I may be a bit biased, but I actually think the folks at Vat19.com did a slightly better rendition than the ArtPrize winner.  The hair and nose, in particular, look fantastic.  I feel like I could reach out and touch his fluffy beard!

Now if only they had known about this art show racket, they could have really cashed in.  I’ll be sure to add “win wildly extravagant cash art prizes” to my next business plan.  (Ha, who am I kidding…  I never had a business plan!)

Now if you don’t have 465 hours $245 dollars in spare pennies lying around like Rich from Michigan, you can always pick up your very own Penny Portrait for a mere $20 and put one together in a couple of hours.  Hit up www.PennyPortrait.com to get your very own.