Bitcoin Forum

Good morning to all you beautiful bitcoiners! ;D

I wanted to post a long overdue thread where we can discuss all the many important updates of The Bitcoin Penny Company for 2022 and beyond.

First, let me thank you all for being patient with the delivery of our 2021 gold and silver collection. The minting industry has taken a small hit over the last few years with many private mints going out of business. That leaves only a handful of private mints doing all the work which, in turn, creates a longer production wait time for many of their customers, including TBPCo. Add to that the double strokes of bad luck we’ve encountered with the mint’s third-party die maker — one set of chipped dies followed by replacement dies of the wrong size — and the wait time has increased significantly. However, we hope that all of that bad luck is behind us, and that the 2021 gold and silver coins will be ready in just a few short weeks. (Fingers crossed.)

Second, I’d like to address the 2021 Mini Physicals DIY fundable coins that many of you are still eagerly waiting to see released. Common business sense says that a business should continue to release and sell products all year long, even when one particular product may be overdue for release. However, I struggle with that philosophy. Personally, I believe it is poor form to release new products while some customers are still waiting to receive older products (e.g. the 2021 gold coins). For this reason, TBPCo has remained quiet in the forums and social media, and we’ve avoided announcing and/or releasing any new products until the 2021 gold coins have been minted and distributed to our pre-order customers. This includes the 2021 Mini Physicals DIY fundable coins as well as several other fun and exciting products that are 100% completed and ready for sales and shipping. Hopefully, after the 2021 gold and silver coins are released in just a few short weeks, you’ll start seeing some of these new products and projects, including our first ever 2021 SILVER Mini Physicals DIY fundable coins. (Silver. Fundable. Collectible. Bitcoin life is good, isn't it?)

Once again, I’d like to thank you all for your patience while TBPCo waits to release the rest of our overdue 2021 products (e.g. Mini Physicals, etc.) as well as the release of our new 2022 line of products, starting with our annual Mint Mark auction to see your initials minted of thousands of shiny new 2022 Bitcoin Penny® Commemorative Coins.

In the meantime, I’ll update this thread every few days with the progress of our 2021 gold and silver coins, and I’ll be here to answer any questions you may have about that project as well as other future projects, Hopefully, we can keep this single thread alive with all updates for 2022 and beyond.

Regards,
Chris@TBPCo.

just be sure to set one aside of every new item for me lol :P

UPDATE: Yippee! I spoke with the mint, and the new dies have arrived, so everything is ready for the minting process. Actual production will start in roughly 2-3 weeks, which is the next time that all fractional weight coins (.25 ounce, etc) are scheduled to be minted. Once minted, they'll ship to me the very next day. Then it's time for USPS to deliver those beauties to their new homes! ;D


Will do, Mopar. ;)

Regards,
Chris@TBPCo.

SO? ???... You're saying that on, or around St. Patty's Day, from the Pot O' Gold, our Golden Pennies are be forged? And Leprechauns will deliver them? Give or take a rainbow or two? ;) :D

*Don't cha just love the Spring? and GOLDIE'S !!!


**Happy St. Patty's Day Everyone  ;D

Only if you honor a 2x cost of st paddy's day gold  ;)

good things :)

UPDATE: Once again, I want to thank you all for your patience during the frustratingly slow production of these precious little coins as well as all of the other coins and products that we've released behind schedule during this long pandemic. The good news is that industries across the board are starting to catch up with demands, including our beloved private minting industry.

Yesterday, I spoke with my contact at the mint. It seems they were backlogged a little more than expected on the larger size coins. However, she was happy to announce that as of this week, the mint has finally completed their biggest backlog of orders (for the larger 1/2 oz coins), and the next run of coins will be for the smaller 1/4 oz sizes (our silver and gold coins). This next run is scheduled to begin in just a few short days on April 4, so...WOOHOO!

In order to expedite orders, I've asked my contact to ship the silver and gold coins separately as soon as they are completed. The mint will produce all the silver orders, then start on the gold orders. That means there may be a 1-2 week space between receiving the silver coins and receiving the gold coins. We didn't want to wait on both orders to be completed before shipping, so they will ship the orders separately as they are completed. (We knew that you would want to add these precious little coins to your private collections as soon as possible.)

Once all silver and gold coins have shipped from us to you, then we will officially launch our 2022 year starting with the annual, and always exciting, Mint Mark Auction, so stay tuned! ;D

In the meantime, I want to thank you all, once again, for your patience with the frustratingly slow production times during this global pandemic.


Regards,
Chris@TBPCo

More updates... :)

UPDATE #1
Our long overdue gold and silver coins are still in production, and we expect to have them soon. The mint has been instructed to ship them as created, so if, for example, the silver coins are created first, then we'll receive those first and distribute them immediately while we wit for the gold coins to be created and shipped. It's been a long and tedious process so far, and we thank you for your supreme patience. #NoMorePresales

UPDATE #2
NFDoodles are now available on OpenSea (https://opensea.io/collection/bitcoin-penny-nfdoodles)!

Our first release of NFDoodles, Series 1, was a collection of 10 unique 1/1 doodles featuring our mascot, Sir Reginald Pennyman, on a few of his many adventures.

For our second release, Series 2.0, we decided to change things up a bit and focus on the more simplistic and whimsical doodle styles that you've all come to recognize from us, including those random little arrow explanations where none are actually needed! (Those just make us laugh!) Series 2.0 is an assortment of six different wrist watch doodles collectively titled "NFTimepiece," with five of those doodles being rare full-color 1/1 pieces. The sixth design features our famous black and white motif from our paper doodles, and it's more common with 13 copies available. (Future releases will likely see the more common black and white versions with greater quantities.)

https://i.imgur.com/GLhiEcE.jpg

Series 2.0 — No Number “White Edition" (Total of 13 Identical Copies) 
Our original NFTimepiece in the classic black and white doodle motif for your collecting pleasure. Wear it with pride, my friend.

Series 2.0 — No. 1/5  "1984 Edition"
Revisit the bright and wild 80s with this Swatch-inspired NFTimepiece! (Hairspray and parachute pants not included.)

Series 2.0 — No. 2/5  "Japan Edition"
Every iconic release needs an ultra rare and highly collectible Japanese Edition. (Subtitles in Spanish.)

Series 2.0 — No. 3/5  "Ninja Edition"
The Ninja Edition is pure stealth — black on black on black with illuminated hands. Wear this deadly fashionable NFTimepiece on your next midnight assassination.

Series 2.0 — No. 4/5  "Satoshi Edition"
Satoshi Nakamoto introduced the famous Bitcoin White Paper to a cryptography mailing list on Halloween 2008 at approximately 2:10 PM. Also, Nakamoto has laser eyes. True story.

Series 2.0 — No. 5/5  "Dogex Edition"
Celebrate cryptocurrency in uber luxe style with this special DOGEX Edition NFTimepiece. (Yes! It’s a REAL Dogex. We don’t sell those cheap knockoffs at TBPCo!)


Series 2.0 may be my favorite so far, but we admittedly goofed up on the roll-out. Instead of placing them on an official auction, we simply asked people to submit their best offers. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that people may place different expiration limits on their offers. This oversight caused confusion, since Person 1 might bid .01 ETH with an expiration deadline of 7 days, while Person 2 might offer .025 ETH with an expiration deadline of only 24 hours. If we waited longer than 24 hours, that high bid disappeared.

To resolve the issue, we moved all five of the rare full-color 1/1 Series 2.0 NFTimepiece doodles into an official auction format for the final 24 hours, and those auctions will end precisely at 3PM EST on Wednesday, April 27, 2022. At that time, all high bidders will win their NFDoodles, even if those bids are less than what was originally offered and lost. After all, it was our mistake, so we'll take the hit. Besides, we're here to share some silly collectible doodles, not become NFT billionaires. :D

That said, please visit our NFTimepiece collection on OpenSea (https://opensea.io/collection/bitcoin-penny-nfdoodles) and place your bids on your favorite one(s)! Auction ends in less than 24 hours!

Oh, and visit our website (BitcoinPenny.com) to sign up for our VIPenny mailing list and see sneak previews of the coming NFDoodle drops every Wednesday! :)

Regards,
Chris@TBPCo.
https://opensea.io/collection/bitcoin-penny-nfdoodles

love the doodles - beats 99.9% of the NFT's out there which most are just generic 8 bit computer generated art. But I hate to see Bitcoin art on Ethereum network :(

Thanks for the kind words, Mopar. ;D And I understand the sentiment about BTC art on the ETH network. Maybe we can discuss it more this weekend. I'll be in your neck of the woods. Maybe dinner with the whole crew? Let's set the plans via PM.

In the meantime, you still have approximately 30 MINUTES to bid on one of our 1/1 NFTimepieces for auction on OpenSea (https://opensea.io/collection/bitcoin-penny-nfdoodles)! ;)

https://opensea.io/collection/bitcoin-penny-nfdoodles

Regards,
Chris

that sounds like a plan!

UPDATE

Only 3 HOURS left to bid on one of our latest NFDoodles! Visit our OpenSea.io page to snipe one of these beauties for your own NFT collection!

HINT: Most of these 1/1 auctions end today at 3:00 PM EST. However, one of them is doodled a little differently, and it ends at exactly 4:20. ;)

https://opensea.io/collection/bitcoin-penny-nfdoodles

Regards,
Chris

NOTE: This update will be written in a point-by-point format in order to make it a little easier to process (for my mind and yours) all the moving parts of this crazy minting saga.


Chapter 1: Those 2021 Silver / Gold Coins and a Series of Unfortunate Events

1. We announced a pre-order for our 2021 gold coins in early September 2021. (We were fronting the full cost of the silver coins ourselves.) Over the course of the next 7 months, every time that I inquired about the production status of our coins, our mint contact would explain about a new problem that had delayed the production schedule for several weeks more.

2. This contact was a new employee for the mint. She had been hired shortly before I placed the silver and gold coins orders, and due to the ongoing Covid pandemic, she was allowed to work remotely from her home, without direct daily supervision from other mint employees. Ultimately, this was a serious problem.

3. After 7 months of delays and excuses, I contacted her mint supervisor directly via email. (The supervisor and I have a very long history of minting coins together. In fact, the supervisor was my previous mint contact before she was promoted and the new employee was hired to replace her in her previous position as customer service contact in charge of custom minting projects.) The mint supervisor urged me to call her immediately, which I did.

4. On this call, the mint supervisor explained that it was recently discovered that the new employee was not processing orders for customers. Payments were made to the mint’s accounts by customers, but many orders were never formally processed, which means that the mint had no official record of these projects existing. Hence, many projects were never started. All of the problems and delays over the past 7 months were fabrications that the new employee was spinning in order to further delay any accountability or discovery that these orders were never processed to begin with. Until this point in mid-April 2022, all of the excuses and delays had been lies told by one new rogue employee who was merely collecting a paycheck without processing many customer orders. (Why? Who knows?)

5. By this point, the mint was no longer in contact with the rogue employee. (The mint had tried to reach her in order to hear her side of the story, but the rogue employee refused to speak with the mint at all, and the mint was only able to relay a few messages through the employee’s sister, as I understand it.)

6. The mint supervisor told me that unprocessed orders were not isolated to our company alone. There were many orders from many companies that went unfilled and unprocessed over the course of those previous 7 months.

7. Even today, 2 months since the discovery of all those unprocessed orders, the mint is still struggling to fill all those long overdue orders. (Personally, I would expect it to take a while longer. After all, 7 months is a very long production backlog.)

8. On June 5, I emailed the mint supervisor to ask about an estimated production and shipping date for our coins. I was told that our coins were scheduled to be minted in about 2 weeks “around the 17th.”

9. Naturally, after all the excuses and delays over the previous months, I was hesitant to post this new “around the 17th” production update on the public forum, so I chose to simply wait patiently and cross my fingers.

10. A few days ago, on June 15, I received an apologetic email from the mint supervisor. She explained that while the production manager was preparing to start the minting process on our coins, he noticed that the dies were damaged and unusable. This new problem would cause a new delay of up to a few more weeks.

11. And this is where we stand today.


Chapter 2: Deliberation / Disappointment

1. While the long overdue 2021 silver and gold coins were still waiting to be minted and released, we decided to postpone the release of any new products designed for the new 2022 year. We didn’t feel it was right to ask for sales from any new products while we were still waiting to deliver some old products.

2. However, after being notified by the mint on June 15th about yet another delay in production, we have decided that we can no longer wait (indefinitely) to release our new and upcoming 2022 products. (After all, it’s already June.)

3. That said, after much deliberation and disappointment, we have decided to cancel the production of our 2021 silver and gold coins.

4. All funds that were previously paid to the mint for the 2021 coins will go toward minting the all new 2022 silver and gold coins. (The pre-paid blanks will simply sit on a shelf reserved under our name until they are ready to be minted with the new 2022 designs.) We plan to allow the mint a few more months to finish catching up on all their backlogged projects before staring production on the new 2022 silver and gold coins.

5. Once again, we plan to discontinue production of the 2021 silver and gold coins in order to start fresh with an all new order of 2022 silver and gold coins. The new gold coins are tentatively scheduled to start production by late summer for an autumn release.


Chapter 3: Refunds, Credits, and You

1. Full refunds will be offered to all of those who participated in the 2021 gold coins pre-sale.

2. Pre-sale customers will have the choice of either (A) receiving a full refund of their pre-sale purchase, or (B) simply waiting a few months longer and receiving the all new 2022 gold coins instead of the discontinued 2021 gold coins.

3. Upon request, refunds will be issued in the same currency in which they were originally paid. (BTC payments will receive BTC refunds, PayPal/USD payments will receive PayPal/USD refunds, etc.)

4. Pre-sale customers will be contacted this weekend via PM to discuss which option they would prefer.


Chapter 4: What have we learned from all this madness?

1. No more pre-sales.

2. Ever.

3. Someone, somewhere, is laughing maniacally and having an absolute ball with their bitcoin penny company voodoo doll. From what I can tell, that’s the only rational explanation for all of the many obstacles and setbacks to our various projects over the last year. It’s a voodoo curse. Plain and simple.


Chapter 5: Where do we go from here?

1. Our company’s core beliefs are simple — have fun whenever possible, remain cheerful in the face of adversity, and never take anything in life too seriously.

2. As always, we will stay true to those core beliefs. We will hold our heads high, smile our most optimistic smile, and carry on in order to bring more and more fun and happiness to the bitcoin community for a very long time to come.

3. Besides, the 2021 silver and gold coins were just one of many, many projects. In the long run, while disappointing, this whole ordeal is just a small blip in a long timeline of delicious goodies that we’ve brought to you over the last 7 years, and an even smaller blip compared to all the exciting new projects waiting to be released!

3. Thank you for supporting bitcoin and The Bitcoin Penny Company. Our customers are the absolute best, and I’m so very proud to call many of you, “friends.”

4. In the meantime, and as a precaution, we’ve rented the 2005 film “Skeleton Key,” and we’re taking notes on how to properly counter the voodoo curse. We’ve already poured a jar of red brick dust all around our website as well as around our many upcoming projects, so I think we’re safe from bad luck for the rest of 2022 and beyond.

5. ;)

Regards,
Chris@TBPCo.
https://i.imgur.com/pr8pZgp.jpg

My thought is that the mint is in trouble. I would look for a new minting partner. If the rogue employee wasnt also stealing the funds the mint would have noticed their balance sheet off by thousands. On Jan 1st they would of had probably hundreds of thousands of dollars over what they expected. Easy to toss one ex-employee under the bus, but i tend to think that the problem is more systemic. Id be careful sending them more money until they fulfill their obligation.

Will the silver and gold mint marks carry over to the 2022 ones?  dolphriends & myself respectively won the mint mark selections for the 2021 ones.

Roll my pymt over to the 2022 coin - I want a set of those stars as well

Thank you for the very kind words, haloxon. They mean a lot. :)


You may be correct. Hopefully, the mint will sort out any lingering internal problems and be right on track again soon. They make some stellar quality pressings!


Absolutely! But only if you'd like. If you'd prefer the full refund of your mint mark bid, then we're happy to go that route too. Either is fine. It's your choice, my friend.


Will do, Mopar! And the Ninja Stars are almost ready. Just finishing up with the final packaging details. ETA for release is Monday afternoon.


Thanks again, everyone. PMs will go out tomorrow morning to all pre-sale customers. In the meantime, keep smiling. ;)

Regards,
Chris@TBPCo.

No refund, I'll be waiting for the 2022!

Can I get 2 of the throwing stars pls?

Can I please get 1 one the throwing stars. Please confirm what I owe and where to send the money. Thanks

I’d like a throwing star as well. Thing looks badass!

Thanks for all the positive comments, everyone! Your understanding of the situation is very much appreciated.

As for the Ninja Stars, they'll be enough for everyone. ;D


Regards,
Chris@TBPCo.

Ill wait for the 2022 gold pennies. And of course i need a throwing star. Save me one please. Id also like one of the bitcoin penny nunchucks and the bitcoin penny katana blades please.

Hmm... Pure copper (DIY / fundable) katana blade. Hand-wrapped leather grip. Handguard made from a giant penny. It's just crazy enough to work. ;D

Chris@TBPCo.

NFDoodles Reboot

You spoke, we listened!
 
Your favorite Bitcoin Penny® doodles have come to the Bitcoin blockchain via the Counterparty NFT collectible community!

We’re calling these little gems NFDs or Non-Fungible Doodles, and they’re a spin-off from our original full color NFDoodle experiment on Opensea.io earlier this year.

These rebooted NFDoodles will be drawn more like our original paper doodles with the same size proportions (3x2, 2x3) and simple black & white scribbles that you’ve come to know and love like tolerate over the last 7 years. (Arrows and unnecessary descriptions included.) And since we scanned and saved most of our original paper doodles from the earlier years, you may see the occasional “redux” NFDoodle based on your own personal paper doodle from your collection, so keep a sharp eye!
 
But act fast, because each new NFDoodle design is limited to only 21 copies. And with a fresh design dropping every Friday at the low, low price of only $7 per NFD, you’re able to build a world class Bitcoin Penny® NFD collection with very little investment. Well done, YOU!

Check out our new website page dedicated to these NFDoodles!  (https://bitcoinpenny.com/pages/nfdoodles)

Enjoy!!!

Regards,
Chris@TBPCo.

Hi Chris!
Any update on the 2022 Golds?
Thanks.

Thanks for asking, sweeteye. I'm waiting on one last email reply, then I'll be making the official announcement. Shouldn't be later than Friday, I suspect. Hopefully, sooner.

Regards,
Chris

It is with sad heart that I must announce the official abandonment of our 2021/2022 gold and silver coins projects, and refunds for all gold coin pre-orders will be issued immediately.

As you know, there were several unfortunate delays in our original 2021 production plans. Those delays caused us to postpone the project until the 2022 production season. However, more delays have occurred, and since the year is nearly at end, we must concede that this project should be abandoned.

Our favorite private mint, the one we have used for several years for our 1/4 oz silver and gold coins, has decided, due to the bear market in the minting industry over the last few years (since the covid pandemic), to streamline its minting procedures and project requirements. Simply stated, like most private mints in the USA, they will no longer be offering fractional rounds (1/10 oz, 1/4 oz, 1/2 oz), but only full 1oz rounds in silver, gold, and other precious metals.

Since our projects call for fractional rounds of the 1/4 oz size, our favorite mint is now unavailable for these particular services. (However, we still love this private mint, and we do not blame them one bit for needing to streamline their services in the wake of this brutal bear market, and we hope to continue using them for any and all 1 oz silver and gold coins projects in the near future.)

In the meantime, in a most desperate attempt to save our highly anticipated gold and silver coins projects, we have contacted every private mint available to us, all without good luck. Most of the private mints in the USA are following the path of our favorite mint and have ceased production on all fractional rounds in an attempt to streamline their own expenses / production and save their businesses. (Many private mints have permanently closed their doors due to the post-covid, bear market environment.)

In summary, all other private mints that we’ve contacted either (A) no longer mint fractional round sizes, or (B) have agreed to mint these smaller, non-standard sizes, but as special order items only and at an astronomical price increase. (Most of these increases are 3-4x what we have normally paid in the past.) Thus, we must reluctantly admit defeat on these particular projects, adjust our vision for all future gold and silver coins projects, and sincerely and regretfully apologize for any inconvenience this whole minting saga may have caused.

Once again, thank you all for understanding, and for your continuing support of The Bitcoin Penny Company.

We look forward to celebrating our 9th year serving the bitcoin community, and we promise to bring you plenty of new and exciting projects in the coming months. (Just no pre-orders, please.)

Regards,
Chris@TBPCo.

Good morning, everyone.

Wow. It's been a long while, and quite a crazy few months. Let's catch everyone up-to-date with all the goings-on at The Bitcoin Penny Company.

First, let me say, that I am personally apologetic for these last few months. We (I) have been so mentally entangled with juggling a number of projects (many years-old) that I've let slip the most important aspect of any business — customer service. We have been suuuuuper late with shipping products, and we've been equally lax on replying to personal messages. In the future, I will correct those short-comings and get right back to where I was only a few short months ago, prompt and leading a company that is full of awesomeness and zero un-awesomeness.

In the meantime, let me tell you where we are on a few of our most recent projects. Some good news, some bad news, and still a little awesome news.

The Spanish Treasures Collection (aka Pirate Coins) — These are a little more than half way complete. As of today, about half of the gold coins have shipped, 90% of the silver coins, and only about 20% of the copper coins. We have readjusted the schedule for this week and next, so we should have all the coins minted and out by the end of that period. (Again, I apologize for the slow process.)

The DIY Silver Dollars (1oz Buyer-Funded Physical Bitcoins) — These coins, on the product ideas books since 2016, were supposed to be out last month. However, we've decided to push back production / delivery of these coins by a couple more months (March 2024) to give us time to fulfill all the other projects in the works. (Way too may projects being juggled all at once!) Customers may expect PMs with more explanation shortly.

The .999 Silver Mini Manhole Covers — This is a super secret project that officially has been in the works since 2021 (but whispered about since 2017). It has been a complete nightmare with a bazillion production problems along the way. Miraculously, the project FINALLY paid off in unbridled awesomness! As of today, the project is FINALLY complete and ready for show and tell with its very own ANN thread. (Please stay tuned.)

As for any other projects that we may be thinking about, we're postponing any until the projects above are 100% complete and delivered, which should be soon.

In the meantime, thank you, everyone, for your supreme patience over the last 2-3 months. We love you, and we appreciate you.

Happy bitcoining! :)

Regards,
Chris@TBPCo.