Bitcoin Forum

I love Casascius coins.  I think they are awesome, they deserve the attention they get, and I am now thinking about creating my own coins, similar in format to Casascius coins.

The big reason I want to do this is as a way to use some of the great firstbits addresses I have.  You could buy a coin with 1KILO on the back of it, and know that you can always look up the full address of that coin at blockchain.info (or firstbits.com when it is back up).  Or, buy a coin with 1KIRK on the back, redeem the coin by importing the private key into your Bitcoin client, and then use the address as your own (perfect if your name is Kirk?).

These coins would:
- have custom security level hologram on one side with private key behind it (~$5000 sunk fee)
- have elaborate design on the other side
- potentially have some sort of edging on the coin (like US quarters do)
- likely be 1.5" in size
- all be 1 BTC coins (1 BTC is held inside of the private key)
- all have premium firstbits addresses on them, such as 1SEXY, 1KIRK, 1KILO, 1STUD, 1MUSIC, 1AAAAA, etc

Decisions to be made:
- Design of hologram and coin face.
- Size of coin.
- Straight metal coin, or colored?
- Is 1 BTC too much or too little?
- NAME of the coin.

Your thoughts?  Would you be interested in such a coin?

I would be interested. But a good idea to make a coin worth of cash value also is to gold plate it?

Design: Casascius got it right the first time. Bitcoin logo, denomination, year minted. Maybe "In Satoshi We Trust"? ;)
Size: Probably around the size of a JFK half dollar: slightly larger than a quarter.
Color: Probably straight metal. Maybe consider making a few special edition ones in .999 silver? Other than that, probably nickel plated zinc or pure nickel.
Denominations: You might also want to consider BTC0.5 and BTC0.1, BTC1 is a nice novelty, but nobody is going to realistically trade in BTC1 increments.
Name: No idea

I'll keep that in mind, thanks for the feedback.

Yes, I agree Casascius coins were well designed!  I obviously need my own design, but general style/feeling, it would probably end up similar.  I was thinking a bit larger than a JFK half-dollar (1.2"), but perhaps you are right and that would be too large.

The biggest problem with denominations is how do I decide which address gets which denomination?  Should it be random, or selected by the customer, or attempt to select the best out of the bunch for the higher denominations?  I thought about it before, and didn't really want to let the customer select by denomination, as that would mean I would have to wait to apply a hologram until the coin was ordered.  If I don't apply them in a big batch, but instead one by one as they are ordered, I can see it leading to mistakes.  Mistakes are not acceptable in a project like this.  Maybe I could just do them in batches, and let the addresses fall where they will.

I think it'd be awesome if you made the coins out of silver. That way they would retain some value AND be a collectors item even after they're spent.

Mmm, might be a possibility!  Especially if they were 1 BTC denominations...

I love casascius coins but I think we need a little diversity in our physical coins. A little decentralization if you know what I mean.

I'd be in the market for this, especially with with some of the huge markups the casascius resellers are asking. A guy I messaged the other day wanted 1.9 bitcoins for a 2013 1 BTC valued coin.

I'm not sure what I'd do for markup.  If I used silver 1oz coins, I'd be looking at around $31/coin in variable costs plus the $5k fixed costs.  Add some profit in to recover the fixed costs and make it worth my time, and a 1 BTC coin at today's market price stamped with 1AAAAA address might cost an individual around 1.5 BTC.  Could cut that down to 1.3 BTC if I wasn't using silver.

And of course, the markup would be worse on the smaller coins... I might have a minimum order if I decide to do multiple denominations and sell 0.1, 0.2, 0.5 BTC coins.  Maybe I should denominate them as 100 mBTC, 200 mBTC, 500 mBTC?

I am glad to see interest in this!  I will move forward with the project as much as I can, until I have the funding to make it happen.

Here: http://www.freedomsilvermint.com/custom-minting.html
It would cost you $200 for the die (which lasts forever), and there is a minimum order of 100@$2.75over spot of your custom rounds.

I just looked quickly to give you an idea. I'm sure you'd be able to find a less-expensive method.

Goof luck!

Interested!

As some of you may know I'm collecting a lot of physical bitcoin collectables to start a museum.  I've got another website to build then I start on the museum  ;D

So, Yes! You should ABSOLUTELY create a physical bitcoin. I love Cascasius but the man needs competition!

+1 for me! Willing to pay BTC1.5 for a 1BTC coin  ;)

This is certainly interesting.


I hope you can successfully do this, I wish you good luck!

make 21 silver coin with only 1 satoshi in it

is your museum going to be online?

If you do lower than 1BTC then measure it in mBTC - I really think mBTC should be pushed forwards for lower values.

But i think a 1BTC .999 or .925 silver coin would be really nice!.

+1 for 1btc silver coin. I would be interested.

Getting there :)

Believe me, once I've gotten the bones of it up you'll all be the first to know :)

How many quality firstbit addresses do you have? What will you do when you run out?

If I were sgtspike I'd sell those ones at a premium.

Mind you, forstbits have gone a bit out of fashion

1xxxxx and shorter are fairly easy to generate, I'm sure he can make more.

Definitely interested in 1 BTC silver rounds!  The market needs competition.

Around 15,000 is my best guesstimate.  I had around 25,000 that I purposefully "reserved", but as far as which ones of those are good firstbits, I'd guess around 15,000.  Maybe less, maybe more.  These include patterns like neat numbering sequences, letter sequences, english words, and various names.

When I run out?  Start a new series that isn't hinged upon firstbits...!


They have, but there's no reason they can't go back into fashion again.  ;)


I can't make more if they are already taken.  I couldn't make two 1sexy coins, for instance, because the 1sexy firstbits would already be taken by the first one.  And I think most, if not all, 5 letter English words are already used in the blockchain at this point.


Thanks for the feedback!


I wonder if I could do a kickstarter to get this thing off the ground...  Hmmm...

You mean Bitcoinstarter.com?  Has anything ever been funded there?  I was under the impression it was still below "critical mass" to be useful.  Maybe I could run parallel campaigns on both kickstarter.com and bitcoinstarter.com, and let one pick up the slack on the other as needed.

Dammit, I meant to say, bitcoinstarter and kickstarter, silly me.

Id buy into a kick-starter (preferable paying in bitcoin) if it guaranteed receipt of one of the first batch :D

Bump? Really keen on this, but have you lost interest  :( .

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

I'm still thinking about it.  I've been in talks about a partnership with someone else who is also interested in creating coins.  My biggest roadblock is funding, since I'd need around $6,000-$8,000 to make this a reality, and I just don't have that kind of money right now.

Kickstarter!.

As I said, I would kickstart this kind of thing as long as a price was set at which the funding would lead to a physical coin!

Im sure many others would too!

It doesn't hurt to try, right?  :)

I'll see what I can do to get this going then..!

+1

I would also be interested in lower denominations (0.01, 0.05, 0.10) to send as gifts for holidays to my family to get them started in bitcoin.

Hey I just saw this. PM me your contact info. I already have the dies being made as we speak and the silver is on order. We go into production mid July early August. Lets talk and see where you fit in. Don't worry about money. This is already fully funded.

What ever happened to my oak coins!!  :-[ :-[ :-[

<<<---- Collects Physical Bitcoins. Definitely keep us updated!! Interest I Am Of!!

I made some imaginary Bitcoins (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=182200) for fun some time ago:

http://i5.minus.com/ib0pTKrhqgogXq.png

I was totally surprised when I was approached by btctrinkets (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=153618) who wanted to make physical versions of them for his store. I got the first two for free. They don't have any actual Bitcoin value though, and are just meant to be nice objects. I love their size and weight :)

http://i7.minus.com/i6iB1KZu9k9X3.jpg

I have been thinking of the same thing but came to the same conclusion that it needs $5k-$7k start up funds to get the proof made and the first batch of coins. The other big issue is trust. I suggest you think about spitting the addresses and using a second party so no one person has the private keys. Ultimately, trust in the person creating the private keys will be the biggest challenge to this endeavor. One way to do this is have a tamper-proof seal on both sides of the coin. One person attaches the first half on one side, ships it to the second party and they attach the other on the back. Then no one person has access to someone else's bitcoins.

A cheaper option is custion scratch off cards with the same concept but use a tamper-proof label on the back that you add to go with the factory sealed one on the front.

Another way to add trust to mass circulated physical bitcoins is to create/link a WOT online with a private code on each coin to verify the person who is giving it to you is generally trustworthy.

Guys,
Please start a kickstarter project, I am in and I would imagine that allot of other people would be too.

Edit: Or create a btct.co project and we can invest that way as well.

Please expect our offering into this market of fine silver and gold bitcoin pieces shortly as well.

it would be cool to see another type of coin out there, casascious coins are nice but hes the only one manufacturing them

Does anyone know where we could get blank silver 1/2oz or 10gram coins for close to spot? That might be a good size to work with.

I decided to move forward with this project, since you all are eager about it.  It bodes well that I seem to have customers before even starting.  I aim to fund the entire startup amount via kickstarter and possibly bitcoinstarter.  I'll have to raise around 4 to 5 times what my startup costs are (so, raise $25,000 - $35,000 in total), simply because I'll have to buy Bitcoins with a large part of the funds to ensure that I can fund the coins after they are produced.

In the meantime, I've been playing around with coin designs.  While I plan to have a pro complete the finished design from scratch, I want to have something visual to offer on the kickstarter page that will be at least somewhat close to the finished product.  What do you all think of this design?

https://i.imgur.com/E6bsbRF.png

Black would be embossed, gray would be textured.

The overall idea of the design is to show the freedom and global reach of using Bitcoin.  In Libertate Commercia translates to "Trade In Freedom" according to my Latin-loving cousin.  The binary around the edge also converts to say the same.  The box at the bottom would have the firstbits of each coin engraved (though I am unsure whether I actually want to keep this feature, as it does add some complexity to the logistics of it all).  The earth on the front of the coin shows the Americas, and a small part of the eastern continents.  I plan to have a similar design in the center of the hologram on the back of the coin, but showing the continents on the opposite side of the globe instead.

EDIT:  Also, any ideas for naming the coins?

It is a nice design, it has some similarities with our design, but we are not competing with your project.
Your project has some unique features that are very special (the unique names is a great feature and adds a lot of value)

Instead we are focused on issuing a value based piece in high quantity that can be used as barter in perpetuity without removing Bitcoins from the market, requires no trust (not even needing to trust the issuer that they haven't already spent an embedded bitcoin) and one that maintains the same anonymity that you might expect from the change in your pocket without any special procedures.

Looks good. I would love to see a world map included that is not US/European-centered. Maybe, switch to a map with the pacific ocean as the center so it would look less imperialistic and more egalitarian.

How big will this coin be?
The text would be very small for a Casascius 1BTC
(However, on a 1oz silver round it might be ok)

name suggestions:
Spikecoin, Sergeantcoin  ;D

Seems there's lots of people interested in creating a casascius type coin; I've been thinking about it myself. However, I think your trying to raise to much which might set you up for failure.

Here's my thinking on your quote above:

Why buy bitcoins? Do like Mike and just fund the majority of BTC coins sales with the BTC that the customer just paid you.  This is the best way unless you plan on accepting real money for these items. If that's the case, then your going to run into the whole "money transmitter" issue and your going to need a heck of a lot more than $35k to become compliant (I'm assuming you live in the US).

But if you just accept BTC only, don't buy a bunch of BTC in bulk as you never know what the price of BTC will be. You might buy high, price drops a lot, and then you get a bunch of orders because people want to buy low; could really land a blow.  I think casascius has it down right as price per BTC doesn't really matter to him as much as he will always make a profit on a sale.

agree mike needs some good competition.

I agree, it is difficult to find such a map, but that's what I hire a graphic designer for - they can create one from scratch.  :)

I appreciate the input.

The reason I would need to buy Bitcoins is because the kickstarter is in USD, and I expect that the vast majority of the startup funds would come from kickstarter.  If I promise to send out coins in exchange for people helping to kickstart the project, but the price of each Bitcoin rises to $1,000 before I am able to purchase Bitcoins for the coins, then I would have no way to fulfill my obligation.

Even if I raised funds only in BTC, I would still have to set the majority of the BTC raised aside to be able to fund the coins with, which means I would still have to raise several times my startup costs in order to be able to pay for those startup costs.  It's six one way, a half dozen the other.

Good point about the Money Transmitter laws... that might make a kickstarter out of the question anyway.

You could just start a Kickstarter project where you send them a coin with the hologram/wallet ID/private key in place but the coin is just unfunded; this also makes it so a donation can be a lot less and they still get a coin.  Then just leave it to them to fund the coin if they wish. This would drastically reduce your start-up cost and not have to worry about the money transmitter issue.

You would just have to research the cost of your die, custom hologram, accessories, shipping, etc before starting the project so you don't cut yourself off at the knees. At the end of the day, your main cost will just be the initial master die ($200-$1500) and master hologram (high as $5000).  After those are done, reorders are pretty cheap. Also, don't pay for a graphic designer. Most companies have in-house ones that will do it for free if you're making your coins with them.  They also do it for a living on coins, so they know what will work and will look good.

There are a lot of concerns in design.  Not just the look, but it starts there.  If you want the coins to circulate, you also have to consider how they will wear.  If you are using precious metal, there are different characteristics of each of these, hardness, malleability, melting temp (which relates to pressure when struck in the press), as well as how the metal will flow into the die, and the different sorts of luster you can achieve with different finishes as well as a vast amount of historical design across the world.
If you are a collector, or numismatist, you probably have some idea of what works and what doesn't over time.
The zinc content in the Indian Rupee for example.  It is light and looks fine when new, but wears out fast.

With your project, circulation issues may not be a high concern as it will be for my project.  My goal is different though.  Looking for high volume and to keep them in circulation as much and as long as possible, and not to lose any value when "used".

Interesting idea... the only problem I have with leaving the coin unfunded is that people couldn't take them without looking them up.  You couldn't make the assumption that a 1 BTC coin actually holds 1 BTC by just making sure the hologram is intact.

It would certainly skirt the possibility of having to comply with MT/MSB though.

Thanks for the thoughts!

You could just make a universal coin to start your project that doesn't necessarily represent a certain amount of BTC.  It would just be a random BTC cold storage coin but it's created by you, so it could be resold by others as you did the whole security part of the coin.  People would know your coins are made and sold unfunded; they would know the risk and know they need to look up the wallet ID on the coin to check BTC value.  Once you get further along and enough funds, you then can go into production of your own prefunded .5B, 1B, 5B, etc...coins.

Just a thought.

Thanks, I appreciate it.  That's definitely a course of action I could take...!

Instead of kickstarter, I am considering conducting a pre-sale here on this forum.  Some quick calculations show actual cost break-even at about 150 1 BTC shiny gold-plated coins sold at 1.4 BTC each + S/H.  I'd set it up so that if that 150 coin goal is not met by a certain date, I would simply refund the full BTC to everyone who preordered.

- Should I go with a higher price for lower # of coins necessary to meet the goal?  96 coins would be sufficient at 1.6 BTC each, for example.
- Should I go with a lower price to encourage more preorders?
- Should I offer multiple denominations of coins from the get-go?  It would increase the fixed costs by a small margin.

Since I have some unique firstbits that can never be reused, I was also thinking of offering some sort of premium coin feature, where those who paid more for the premium feature could pick out which firstbits they wanted on their coin before the others, out of the whole list of firstbits I have available.  Would this be a desirable feature?  How much extra would be fair to charge for this feature?  Or should it be a "pay whatever extra you want, and you can pick in order starting with who paid the most"?

any chance of making small denominations?

0.01, 0.05, 0.10?

Hei Spike,
nice little project. I would prefer lower rated coins. I also would'nt care about looking that much. As far as we reach "normal curency looking" the more it would be noticed by people that never heared about btc :)
1 btc equals about 100 usd atm. And should raise even more... so a coin with1 btc will not often change the owner. All coins made so far are more collectables than an alternative to always buy from a pc or anything.
Just my 5 cents ;) see you on minecraftcc :)

I was thinking about 1 BTC, 500 mBTC, and 100 mBTC.  I could go smaller to 50 mBTC and 10 mBTC, but the cost would have to be much higher than the face value to make them viable.  On the 10 mBTC piece, I'd have to charge around 45mBTC per coin just to cover variable costs, and the final price would likely be much higher than that.  But, I am still looking at various coin minters - I may be able to find a lower cost minter.

So, I think it is a definite possibility to go down to at least 100 mBTC, and possibly 50 mBTC.  I don't know that 10 mBTC is practical at this point though.

How about the following. It would incentivize and reward early investors while mitigating your risk.

Choose a single firstbit, let's just say 1music to pick one.

Offer an auction for all 150 first-run coins at 1.4 BTC apiece.
Auction goes 1 week. If all coins have at least the minimum bid, collections will begin. If all are not covered, the entire auction is null and void.
Winning bidders may choose the coins they want from the initial lost of 150 in price-descending order. (Highest payers get first choice.)
Winning bidders will get first crack at subsequent printing runs.

For example, after this first auction has been run, startup costs have been cleared. Let's say 34 bidders claimed the initial 150 coins.

Now you're ready to start 1music, Second Printing.  These are offered at 1.25 BTC apiece. You offer up the 1000 coins to the 34 bidders, immediately sell 430 of them, then offer the final 570 to the market. (On an ongoing basis, the starting price is adjusted up or down based on demand.)

This process can then be repeated for subsequent firstbits.
This way, collectors can define the price, you offset upfront costs, and still can pad a reasonable profit on an ongoing basis.
You create a rotating collectible stock.  (Future custom engravings could be considered in the future, if/once this has legs.)

Chainsaw, I think you are missing a critical aspect of firstbits.  There is only one 1music firstbits address.  Any subsequent addresses would have to have firstbits of, say, 1music1, 1musicb, 1musicp, etc.  So I own the address corresponding to 1music (and a lot of other simple english words, names, and patterns).  No one else has it, no one else can generate it, etc.

There wouldn't be a run of 1music coins.  There would be a run of coins with one coin having 1music engraved, one coin having 1sexy engraved, etc etc.    Those firstbits could never be reused - they can only exist once.

Engravings cost only $0.50/coin, which is why I am considering a unique engraving for each coin.

All of that said, I rather like the auction idea!  It would still work (arguably even better) for a run of 150 coins with different firstbits addresses.  I could pick out 150 prime firstbits addresses that I own, and then allow the auction to work out who pays how much for which ones.  If I don't raise enough funds through the auction, then everyone is refunded.  And after fixed costs are recovered, I could drop the price further.

I fully support this spike. I would be glad to preorder/invest in/etc to help make this happen.

Count me as a customer/supporter as well.
Especially if you will take payment in silver/gold. :)
If you want to partner.  I have the manufacturing/design/distribution elements covered as well for minting, though your project seems to be a better fit for engraving over minting.  I may be able to see many of the pitfalls that are ahead for you, if you want to chat about it sometime.

Spike - my apologies, I hadn't fully thought through #-of-unique-addresses-per-firstbit.
It was an attempt to segment releases, using your idea, so there was a limited history, and an easy way to know chronology.
Perhaps you could achieve the same effect like so:

Name each release by the name of the single, special firstbit. That coin is always mint #1 of the series.
In this example, you'd take your 100 bidders, and the single, highest bid would get the 1music coin, of the 1music series.

The important thing is the general incentivization structure that lets you pre-collect funds, while protecting both buyer and seller in case you don't get enough funds.

I'd jump on NewLiberty's expertise, as well as anyone else willing to chip in.
There are a lot of unique skills necessary to pull this off, but this is a GREAT opportunity to crowdsource those skills.

I'm really glad this is moving forward with so much promise.  Nail down a kickass design for the coin, and you should be golden.

That's not a bad idea chainsaw, I'll certainly consider it!

I've been talking to a few people and gathering additional advice, etc from various people.  Good stuff, and it certainly gives me better bearings on what all will need to go in to making this a reality.  I don't believe it is too complex a project, just time consuming.  Should be well worth it though.

Speaking of design... is there any additional input with regards to improving the design I posted?  I didn't end up getting a whole lot of feedback on that.

@NewLiberty - I appreciate you supporting this project!  Engraving is not required - if nothing else, I can always print the firstbits on the hologram rather than engrave it into the coin.  I'll send you a PM.

   The only thing that could hurt this whole situation is relying on pre-orders from this forum to pay for everything. Even if you collect the funds, you're still looking at a minimum 4-6 weeks turn around before your coins are even minted and shipped from most companies (I've checked).  Then you got to have the holograms created.  So now you got to put everything together and ship them which will be quite time consuming as well especially since I'm assuming you have a day job. (this won't pay the bills for awhile).

   Not saying it can't work, but people are looking at least 2+ months to receive their coins after a successful funding; this is also assuming everything goes perfect on the manufacturing end that is out of your control. Due to such a long wait, you would almost have to keep 1 BTC from every pre-sale to fund your 1 BTC coins as you never know what the price of BTC will be in 2-3 months after you've funded your project here. So now your stuck with having to raise enough money from the little extra btc of every presale, which means you need lots of presales; might pose a problem.

  I just see to many post on these forums where people jump to conclusions and any delay on your end might have some people trying to label you a scammer and give you a bad name before you can even get your coins out; could be the death of your business before it even starts.  For those reasons, I believe it's best to just bootstrap this (or most of it) and get it all done behind the scenes away from this forum but remain active in the community.  But if you do decide to do it, I would definitely do it quick before some scammer reads all these post about people wanting to throw their money at a preorder of a physical coin and runs off with peoples' money.  Because after that, good luck trying to get enough pre-orders for a project like this. :-\

Thank you, I appreciate the feedback, having smaller denominations like this really helps to spread the word about these things.

Sure I could buy 10 Casascious coins but that would cost me $1000+ USD. I would love to be able to buy $100.00 of .05 BTC coins to send to my friends, family, holiday gifts etc.

Thanks for the advice data_teks.  As I said, it would take around 150 coins preordered at 1.4 BTC/ea to cover the fixed and variable costs (including funding the coins).  I am not sure I could generate that much in pre-orders, but it is so hard to tell how much of a market is out there!  I might just create a quick market survey to find out.

I really wish I had the funding to just bootstrap it myself.  I mean, I could if I took out some debt, but I really don't have any room in my budget to support debt payments.  We're a single-income family with college loans, a mortgage, and all of that, there's just not that much room there.  Still looking around for whatever options present themselves.  I've spoken with a few people interested in investing, but haven't had any satisfactory deals work out on that end either.

Yep, that makes sense!  I'll try to target a small denomination on a cheap coin (but still secured by the best security hologram I can buy) for those sorts of purposes.

My thoughts on the design: Having the Americas on the obverse might be too American-centric? (Although you would have the other countries on the back they are smaller.) The binary goes on the edge of the coins? And have it say something else? Maybe a different font that gives more of a feeling of "safety", "security", "trust"?

Would definitely be interested if you make it look good and be secure. Around B1.4 would be better because a Casascius coin is B1.6 retail now.

Well casascius coins bring that kind of markup because Mike's reputation and trust has earned it. Any new coin will have a long road ahead of it in order to be as successful as casacius coins; it can and I believe it will be done though.

As for the design, I wouldn't worry about it to much. You only have 1 competitor and to be honest, his 1 BTC coins are kind of "ehh" to me.

Ok, I'll change it from the americas to something else.  Just hard to find other views of the earth with CC licensing in a format that can easily be changed to what I want.  But it will be done!  Mosty, I just want to be sure that it is easily recognizable as the earth, even when partially obscured by lettering, etc.

Binary on the edge of the coin is an interesting idea, or maybe even something else on the coin edge.  I was thinking of even just doing a basic rough edge like you would find on a US quarter.

I didn't even change from the default font, not knowing what might look good.  Any suggestions on a specific font I could try?

This may sound cheap but have you tried fivver.com yet for ideas on design? Just $5.00 each.

I know this may come off as sounding harsh but the design that I saw a few pages back is hideous, please reconsider it.

There's quite a few CC vector images in Wikimedia (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Blank_SVG_maps_of_the_world), maybe one will be helpful for you?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/World_map_with_points.svg/603px-World_map_with_points.svg.png

Actually, I take back my original comment, don't use fivver.com.

In fact don't go with CC either, spend some real money on a real designer and this thing will go much much further.

There is a reason why some gold and silver coins always fetch a premium, this is what you should be aiming for.

Don't go cheap, you will regret it!

Also consider this, you are the second person ever to create a physical bitcoin, how do you want to be remembered?

Put me down for 10 of the first 150.

Hey, I'll take criticism!  Criticism is good.

Certainly, the design on the prior page is not meant to be a final design - I will fully admit that I am no graphic design guru!  From what I gather, most mints have graphic designers on-hand to help with designing a great-looking coin, so those will likely be the professionals I turn to.  But, if you have any specific suggestions for improving my rough-draft design, I would love to hear them.  :)

Thanks, I will!

Here is a link that might help someone design a more accurate map. Regardless of what is in the center, it would be nice if the map had more realistic (equitable) proportions. http://www.petersmap.com/ (http://www.petersmap.com/)

Thanks for the suggestion!