Glass Traveler Geocoin

Dimensions: 1 5/8" (42mm)

2D/3D: 1D front/back

Thickness: 5.5mm

Finish: Glass!

Enameling: Hand painted colored glass

Trackable: Yes, on Geocaching.com

Possible Icon:


Description:

The glass traveler, brought to you buy CoinSwag! These highly durable, highly collectible geocoins are made in the USA by a glass artist in Colorado Springs, CO. Each piece is unique in that they are hand made, several steps are included in making a coin as special as this.

It order to create a piece of fused glass, you must be sure that the glass you choose is a compatible COE so that the glass will expand and contract at the same rate during the heating and annealing process and will produce a strong finished piece.

Glass is selected, cleaned, and cut into the shape needed for the finished piece. A special glue is used to hold the colored squares onto the base glass. The glass "sandwich" is placed in the kiln and the kiln is warmed slowly to prevent any cracking of the glass. After approximately 1.5 to 2 hours, the kiln is at 1500 degrees. After checking the kiln visually for "doneness", the kiln is turned off and allowed to cool over several hours. Cooling the glass slowly makes for a very hard, durable finished product. This process is then repeated 3 more times fusing each different colored piece of glass to create a glass geocoin with a total of 5 different colored pieces of glass. This long process also ensures that the glass coin is durable.

Once the pieces are cool (about 6 to 8 hours) They are washed and the edges shaped and polished on a grinder, then washed again. Once they are clean, the design is hand-painted on the front of the piece with special fusible glass paint which is made of finely ground glass in a suspension base. The design is allowed to dry, then the words on the back are hand lettered with the same paint. Once the paint is completely dry, the pieces go back into the kiln for another firing and cooling cycle.

The final phase with this glass coin is to hand etch the trademark symbol on the lower right hand corner of the design, clean the pieces and pack them for shipping.

The total time involved in producing one coin from start to finish is about 17 hours!

This geocoin will only have a unique icon once sales reach 250 or more coins.