UPDATE 6/4/14 - The website is CLOSED for new orders as I prepare to leave New Orleans for sunny California. Rest assured my coins and business shall remain spirited by New Orleans and legally the business shall remain incorporated in Louisiana. Once I am settled, I will offer the same great coins and service, in addition to many new coins that are on the way! If you still want to place an order for a some coins (either funded or unfunded) you may do so via PM and until I actually pack up my laser, which wont be for another few weeks, I may be able to take your order. Thanks for everyones support for my coins and I look forward to getting started again from my new home.
UPDATE 2/6/14 - New lower denomination coins coming soon! Until further notice, anyone who purchases any of my existing coins can receive one of my new coins at face value. This applies to all previous purchases as well! This promotion will last until further notice. No need to do anything special, just remind me when the new coins are available of your purchase and I will have a BitPay link for you to pay face value for the coin. USA Shipping will be free, International at standard ratesUPDATE 1/23/14 - International Shipping now LIVE on the websitePer many of your requests, I will start shipping coins funded with only 0.01 BTC value to ensure the key pair is valid and works. Once the coins are DELIVERED to you (which is why all shipping services have delivery confirmation), the coins will be fully funded. This eliminates worries about lost packages or customs issues.
1/12/14 - Some updates and questions to answer after the first week. I appreciate everyone's PMs and helpful comments. I have dropped the price of each coin by an additional 0.01
1) YES I WILL SHIP INTERNATIONALLY. It is enabled on the website or you can order from me directly. Just PM me and I will take care of you 
2) UPS ground shipping option has been corrected on the website for USA shipping
3) If there is a specific serial number you want, you can have it if it is available. All you have to do is ask
4) Many of you have asked for some more pictures to better see the shine of the hologram stickers, so I have posted some photos below of the coins with various light/flash to show that for you
4) Many of you have also asked about these coins actually being laser ENGRAVED. The answer to that is indeed YES! These coins are not marked with laser that removes an anodized finish or applies a lettering with marking solutions. My laser actually cuts into the metal & removes atoms of metal. This is a true engraving. The markings will not scratch or fade away. I may make a video and upload it.
6) Some of you want to buy my older coins as well, I do have a small amount of 10BTC novelty coins left from my old collection.
7 ) For security some of you want me to ship you coins unfunded and then fund them when delivery has been confirmed. I am happy to do that.
Lots of request for discounts or deal with larger orders have been made. Just PM me, I am happy to try and work with you.
9) Yes, I am the process of making a 0.25 coin
10) And to the surprise of many who want to sell me cool coin/bar designs, YES, I am actually interested. If you have designed a nice physical coin/bar, I am always looking for the next idea so I am interested is buying your artwork for use in coin/bar making. Next on the horizon is a silver bullion coin/bar without a denomination. It will be fully customized to your order with the amount of BTC you want on the coin/bar along with a few lines of text for whatever you want on the coin/bar. I wanted to first thank the forum members here who have supported my desire to offer new physical coins by purchasing all of my old coins. The proceeds from those sales help fund the equipment necessary to make these new products a reality so I want to express my gratitude towards you.
After what seems like forever in development, if am ready to offer for sale three new physical coins. They are offered in three denominations: HALF, ONE, and THREE Bitcoin. My goal is offer elegant and beautiful coins and I think I was able to succeed with this goal. They feature the simple dual ring design, much like my old coins, but are much larger with a diameter of 4.3 cm. They are thick and are made a strong alloys depending on the coin. When you drop them, they have a nice sharp ring to them.
The HALF coin is made of brass and plated in a copper/gold alloy for a lovely rose gold color. The ONE coin is made of brass and plated with a nickel finish. The THREE coin is brass for the inner ring and zinc for the outer ring with nickel and gold platting respectively. Each coin is shipped within an individual clear plastic case.
Unlike my previous business model, these are traditional physical Bitcoins. On the front side of the coin features my NOLACOIN logo with public key laser engraved. Each coin is also individually numerated with a serial number. The HALF and ONE Bitcoin will be limited to 999 pieces and the THREE Bitcoin will be limited to 500 pieces. The back of each coins features a laser engraved QR code of the private key, with a private key also spelled out circumferentially around the QR code. The code is readable by all apps and phone types with QR code reading apps and scanners. The coins have a mirror finish, so the QR code is engraved using the inverse of the code.
My security sticker to protect the QR code features a central hologram sticker that is a scratch off. Much like a lottery ticket, it opaque material covers the code until it is scratched off. A second sticker (the gold one) is placed around the perimeter of the first scratch sticker. This sticker will leave residue behind on the surface of the coin and the edge of scratch sticker if tampered with. The intention of this sticker is to protect against tampering/lifting of the scratch sticker.
The laser marking/engraving of the coins is done by myself with a simply amazing machine that has be purchased and modified for this exact purpose by me. I am the only person with access to this machine and the accompanying control computer. The controlling computer requires my input of the private and public keys, which are done by onboard software in the most controlled manner. The computer has all the obvious and necessary security features to provide complete protection of the private keys. It is offline, never has been online, password protected, and is booted for each use from read only CDROM. The onboard memory of the laser itself has been modified by the manufacture at my request to allow additional cache wipes to ensure there is zero record of the private keys that it engraved on the coins.
There is NO relationship between the serial number of the coin and the private keys generated. If the coin is lost, the keys can’t be recovered and the value of that coin will be lost forever.
The laser itself is made in the USA, 10 watt Fiber laser specifically designed for engraving metals. This coins are not “marked”, which is to say a substance has been placed between the metal and the coin to leave black text which could be potentially rub off. These coins are truly engraved by the laser. The portion of the plating of the coin is removed, thus making the text/code. Nothing short of abrasive sand paper or other excessively destructive means would make the coin unreadable.
The coins are available for sale on my website now,
www.nolacoin.comAll USA shipping will be UPS Ground service.
International Shipping with be with Priority Mail International Service with Delivery Confirmation
The information on the website has been kept intentional brief, since the quantity of these coins is so low, I would prefer to keep most of the information here on this this forum. So please forgive my amateur website. The shopping cart and shipping modules all work great, so its really just a vessel to keep the orders straight.
I will be happy to entrain the any larger or international orders privately via PM through the forum.
I can begin shipping right away, but will reserve a 1 week processing time before shipping for some of the later orders. Each coin is MADE TO ORDER. I do not have hundreds of these pre-engraved or funded for security reasons. Once your order is made, I will engrave the coin, fund it, and ship it.
I will try to keep these prices are reasonable as possible and as the exchange rate of Bitcoin to fiat changes, I will adjust as needed.
As of today the price for each coin are
BTC0.53 ,
BTC1.04, and
BTC3.05 . Shipping is
BTC0.02 per order for USA and
BTC0.05 for International.
Just a little bit about myself, my name is Arash Dini and I live in New Orleans, LA. I love this city and the spirit of New Orleans will be reflected in all my coins. The official business corporation of this endeavor is NOLACOIN LLC, registered in the state of Louisiana in 2011. The name of the LCC has been changed from The Bitcoin Exchange of New Orleans LLC to NOLACOIN LLC to reflect the change in business model that many of you know about from my previous coin offerings.
I enjoy the creation of the coins and design process and if these coins are all sold, I hope to design newer and different coins to suit the physical coin demand. I am an orthopaedic surgeon by day, and this endeavor serves as my hobby and thus my production will always be quite limited and I have no desire to expand. I do it because I love the idea of making these beautiful coins and rather than making thousands of the same coin, my business model will feature short runs of unique coins with new designs as my spare time permits.
Please send me any questions or comments you may have.
