Its a hard pill to swallow paying 0.1
BTC when all you did was trace/flip these two pictures and throw it on a coin with no original artistry of your own. I feel as though you and your team could have come up with something a little better and hopefully you continue with your series and incorporate bitcoin into the face of the coin.
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FNgvlXX4.jpg&t=665&c=oV5nDIfqKhA3QQ)
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FseNRuv1.jpg%3F1&t=665&c=34MbHVXSCaIA4Q)
At the very least I appreciate that the original artist's signatures are still on the drawup of the coin. I feel as though once the actual coin is minted that it may be one of the things that doesnt make it onto the actual silver coin. ( i hope it stays on but as we have seen with the bordering on the NattyMind Samsara coin sometimes the little intricate parts can not actually be done )
Demanding this sort of price point from a bitcoin collectibles community just because another proven coin creator also has a 5oz Silver coin series does not mean that yours is worth the same amount as his. If you go back to when team NattyMind brought out their first coin you can see that they almost/possibly did take a hit just to get their name out there.
This is your second piece in a row that is piggybacking off of another artist/product. Your 65crypto metal wall piece and now this.
This is not a hitpiece but you can see that a lot of the collectors on here are skeptical to reserve these, I think once an actual prototype or the first coins are struck with hologram revealed and applied you might see more interest.
No artistry? We did a ton of research on Vedder to determine which pieces we wanted to use and why, exactly, we wanted to use them. Even coming up with the idea of using Vedder's work is artistic in itself. And determining the images to display, representing the meaning of corrupt government and the ability to revolt, inducing anarchy, is not artistic? These are key components of Bitcoin. And that itself has artistic power, I feel. We created the slogans, as well. Even just coming up with the concept of mirroring the two arts, in order to depict both stances, seems pretty artistic in my eyes.
We did discuss perhaps using our very own original art for our very first coin. In fact, we are working on a new art piece, now, that has been in the works for a few weeks and will continue to be in the works for at least 2-3 more. It features the past and the present. On the left of the art features a city in ruins, the federal reserve eagle shattered on the ground, burned currency, etc etc. On the right, a city in beauty - beautiful grass and trees, graceful birds, and futuristic buildings erected into the shapes of several popular cryptos. We thought long and hard about offering that as our very first coin, along with the original art piece to go with an auction of the #1 coin. But we thought it would be really neat to incorporate Vedder's work into a physical coin. It has never been done before and we personally appreciate what Vedder portrayed. We really liked his philosophical concepts and his presentation. And we figured his work would be much appreciated on a coin.
I'm not sure what you mean about the Top 65 coin piece. How was that "piggybacking" off of another artist? I created that art myself. I took all of the logos, determined the marketcap at the moment of creation, and worked all of those in Illustrator before printing them onto our metal panels. I didn't take anyone's artwork nor did I take anyone's idea. If this is in regards to the fact that someone pointed out it looked like a book cover, then I'm sorry, but that was a mere coincidence. In fact we only created the art because someone reached out to us with the idea and asked us if it's something we could possibly do.
Regarding price, I feel that the price is quite fair and warranted.
How do you know that we are not taking a loss, as well, on this project?
The coin is not simply a cost of minting. There are a
ton of costs that are going into this. To name a few, the silver, as you mentioned, the charge for the actual coin striking, the charge for the coin's die, the charge for our designer to prepare the artwork, the charge to prepare the hologram artwork, the charge for the setup fees and creation of the physical hologram as well as the charge for the actual holograms themselves, the charge to have keys generated and engraved, the charge for shipping (for domestic, and international), the charge for receiving, preparing, and packaging, which covers all of our facility charges and faculty charges, as well, ... there's a ton that goes into the cost of this as well as many of our projects - many of which can easily be overlooked when you're not fully aware of the entire cost of said project.
Regarding hesitation - I did not anticipate this coin selling out in a day or two. Many people, as you mentioned, will want to see the physical coin, first, and see its quality, before moving forward with any type of reservation. And that's perfectly acceptable. I look forward to presenting something of high-quality that the community can cherish and display proudly.