I started out having the encased cents made by Penny Press Mint of Spanish Fork, Utah. I bought my own UNC wheat cents for the encasements, and sent them to PPM owner Kelly Finnegan. See http://www.pennypressmint.com/ for more information on the company.

I designed the layouts myself. Prior to retirement I worked as an architectural draftsman, so I did the designs digitally, and sent them to Kelly at PPM. Kelly then refines the designs and sends digital images back to me for approval. The process went smoothly and I had several types of encased cents done.

Later I contacted PPM about making a "non-encased" token for me to use as a personal token, and Kelly worked with me in the same manner, to produce the design for both the obverse and reverse dies for the personal token runs, in both bimetal and aluminum. Currently Penny Press Mint is working with me again on designing another die, for an additional personal token, which may be ready in 6 months or so.

The whole process is a lot of fun, and I think Kelly at PPM enjoys the process as much as I do!

Here is a photo of Kelly Finnegan of PPM at his table at the 2009 Salt Lake City NTCA show, holding two of the dies that struck my personal tokens:

To view all the token images, see:s60.photobucket.com/albums/h8/clovisfirst/ESYLUM/

Jerry adds:

Bob Leonard (Past President of the Token and Medal Society) writes: