Packaging and Shipping

By now dear reader, if you've read about us and how a fantasy coin is made, you have learned about die engraving, and how the coins are struck, tumbled, and cleaned. The next step is how these finely crafted pieces eventually make their way home to you. We try to put a lot of thought and care into each element of our packaging.

Our preferred method of packaging coins is a paper foldy, which is an evolution of a fair bit of iterating. Originally coins came packaged in a vinyl coin flip, with a card containing information about the coin in a plastic top loader and then placed in a resealable sleeve like so:

Be good stay evil copper decision maker in a plastic top loader

Which worked for a while, but we heard feedback from folks about wanting to reduce plastic waste and like so many things we've made or done over the years, we strive to listen to the community and their wishes as best we can. In honor of Earth Day, we dedicated many hours of brainstorming and stress testing different packaging options until we came upon our now iconic foldy.

axolotl copper coin packaging by shire post mint

axolotl wax sealed decision maker packaging from shire post mint

The coin is placed in an acid-free, sulphur-free, and pH neutral coin envelope for safe storage. This is important, as acids can originate from various sources in a storage environment like cardboard or paper products utilizing acid in the manufacturing process, incompatible plastics, or environmental contaminants can leech onto coins over time and can cause corrosion or tarnish or even full physical deterioration, especially in copper and silver coins.

The envelope is adhered to the paper foldy containing a description of the coin, it's use, or history as applicable, along with technical details like which press and what tonnage was used to strike it.

Silver pet the cat coin on pink envelope in a foldy

All our packaging is designed in house here in our workshop in West Fork, AR, and they spend a lot of time creating unique elements to make each piece of packaging interesting, informative, and fun! We want for each piece to be a joyful experience in unwrapping. Every folio and foldy is printed here on site in our workshop in West Fork, AR, cut, creased, then folded and sealed by hand.

Some coins which are breakable at a time of your choosing come with a small file included, so you can sand any potential roughness away.

Breakable silver heart charm and nail file on coin envelope

Other times, we will make something unique and cool to go along with it like these miniature hand-stamped pizza boxes you can fold to store or share your pizza coin with.

Or this top secret folder of classified documents related to the Roswell Coin.

We fold each piece of packaging by hand, pick an accentuating color, and seal the whole foldy to keep it all together on custom boards Woody made. People were such big fans of the seals they asked if they could buy them, which is what inspired us to develop the magnetic wax seal coin system and is the reason why we sell them today. Wax seal tip: if you're doing a lot of sealing at once like we do, we recommend putting the seals on a cold plate, a piece of ice, or just somewhere cold which will allow for a faster and cleaner release.

The order is picked, arranged, and attached to a folio. It's got to survive being tempest tossed by the the postal system to get home to you, and coins are heavy and can cause regular envelopes to tear, potentially resulting in the coin being lost! We're still slowly making our way through our whole catalog re-designing and updating the old plastic-centric packaging to new foldys. When we have to use plastic, we use compostable cellophane eco bags made of plant based materials when we can, while also taking into consideration the strength and durability of the material being able to survive tumultuous shipping conditions.

a particularly beautiful multicolored wax seal of the memento mori design

An especially beautiful Memento Mori seal

As one might surmise from the "Post" part of the name, our founder Tom is a collector of stamps and fan of the postal service. He used to hand-carve his own postal rubber stamps from locations in fantasy books, and we even have a handmade Intaglio Press and vintage stamp perforator in our mini-museum upstairs.

A fragment of ~Deep Lore~ about the Mint: Back in the very early days of Tom's crafting of coins and the refining of techniques, he acquired an old antique wooden cabinet for mail sorting from a post office which was closing down, in which objects would go missing and seemingly new objects would appear in it like magic! It attained a sort of in-house mystique and mythology about it, in which much like the vaunted Wardrobe from the Professor's Study, one might find interdimensional packages shuttled to and fro through it's doors to realms beyond. To a lover of fantasy, stamps, and the postal service like Tom - it seems very possible that interdimensional mail might be facilitated through such a device. This inspiration carried over into our popular personalized folios which come with every order from our website, interdimensional access approved!

An early folio design

Modern folios have a more refined design, with a nice big spot for the recipients in the middle

Unfolded paper folio with a letter on the left side

Our skilled Shipping team likes to go above and beyond by hand-writing the recipients name on the Folio. If you're ordering a gift for someone, make sure you put their name exactly as you want it in the order notes!

Folio with calligraphy name being written on it

Such beautiful calligraphy!

We then wax seal the folio shut with an appropriately themed design matching what was purchased or a neat antique die design we like.

Beautiful blue wax seal of the King Feyda Calanthis breakable Vintish Penny from the Kingkiller Chronicles

They're finally placed in a nonmachinable envelope and then delivered to the hands of the postal carriers for delivery. Coins can't be sent in "normal" envelopes because mail sorting machines don't like bumpy or irregular packages and can chew them up, resulting in damaged or returned mail. A plain white envelope has no protection from bending, crushing, or theft.

Bigger objects like the cast objects are placed in their respective packaging, and then boxed and shipped out.

The reality of shipping costs is that we are a small business without the resources that large retail outlets have to lower shipping costs, and we do not add the price of shipping to the cost of the coins because of the frequent fluctuations in the cost of shipping. Our objective is to get the coins to customers safely and as quick and cheap as possible, and part of the reason for the costs being more than a letter stamp is to pay for tracking and non machinable packages so that they don't get damaged. Please believe me when I say we are also frustrated with the ever-increasing cost of shipping and the unpredictability of the delivery system.

For more information, check out our shipping policy here.

Heavily damaged envelope and folio from delivery

Alas for Dane, the postal gremlins really took offense to this coin being shipped and decided to run it over with their car before returning it to us because it was illegible.

Despite our best efforts, machine or man sometimes messes up the delivery. Sometimes if the post office has previously had an issue with delivery to your address, mail may be held in a PO box at a nearby Post Office and you may have to pick it up there. Other times, if it's lost in the dreaded Abyss of Lost Mail or the terrible Bouncing-Between-Different-Mail-Centers-For-No-Reason, or even the legendary SURPRISE POSTAL SERVICE STRIKE!! you may have to reach back out to us. In the event that happens, fear not! We always are striving for your happiness and we will work with you on a solution, just email info@shirepost.com.

For more information about our refund policy, click here!

Hopefully this has provided some additional insight into some of the extra effort and attention to detail that goes in to each order beyond the coin itself. We love to see people appreciate our work, so feel free to tag us in any unboxing videos you make - we're on Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, Tiktok, and Youtube!

Thank you for your support!

Packaging and Shipping

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