Nevada Army & Air National Guard
COINS FOR THE
NEVADA GUARD
Guard units order coins on a rhythm nobody else has. Decisions get made on drill weekends, the money usually comes out of a unit fund rather than a budget line, and the people carrying the coin have a civilian job on Monday. All three change what a good coin looks like and how long it takes to get one.
THE TIMELINE IS THE HARD PART, NOT THE COIN
A coin takes about two to three weeks in production once a proof is approved. For most customers the approval takes a day. For a Guard unit it can take a month, because the person who has to sign off is only in the building two days out of thirty.
The way around it is not speed, it is sequencing. Get the artwork settled and the proof issued before the drill weekend, so the weekend is spent approving rather than deciding. We can have a proof in front of you inside 24 hours of the spec being complete, which is usually enough to make a single drill weekend the approval point rather than the starting point.
If there is a fixed date — a change of command, a deployment ceremony, a state function — say it before anything else. It determines whether the job is standard or rush, and rush changes both the cost and which options are still on the table.
STATE HERALDRY, AND WHAT SHRINKS BADLY
Nevada unit coins lean hard on state imagery — the state outline, the sagebrush, the Battle Born motto, and for the Air Guard side the imagery that goes with a Reno-based wing. It makes for coins that look like nowhere else, and it comes with one recurring problem: the state outline is a tall, narrow shape and a coin is a circle.
Set small and centred it reads as a smudge. It works when it is either the dominant element — filling most of the face, with text arced around it — or dropped entirely in favour of something with more presence at that size. A custom-shaped coin cut to the state outline is the third answer, and it costs the same as a round one.
ORDERING
Start in the designer if you want something to circulate before the next drill, or use the quote form if you already know the spec. Statewide orders outside the valley are covered on the Nevada page.
Asked and answered
What people here ask first
- Our approvals only happen on drill weekends. Does that break the timeline?
- It is the single most common reason a Guard coin takes three months instead of six weeks, and it is worth planning around rather than hoping. Production is about two to three weeks once the proof is approved; everything before that is decision time. If approval can only land on a drill weekend, work backwards from the date you need coins in hand and count the drill weekends, not the calendar weeks.
- Can we split the order between Las Vegas and Reno?
- Yes, and it is common for a unit with people at both ends of the state. Valley addresses are delivered by hand; the northern portion ships. It is one order, one proof and one price — the delivery is what splits, not the job.
- Who normally pays for a Guard unit coin?
- Usually a unit fund, a booster club, or the members themselves, which is a different situation from a coin bought on an operating budget. We quote the whole thing in one number — coins, tooling, delivery — because a surprise line item is a much bigger problem when twenty people each put in twenty dollars.
- Will the coin survive being carried every day?
- Soft enamel is the traditional finish and the recessed colour does wear at the high points over years of pocket carry, which some people consider the point. Hard enamel is polished flat and holds up better against keys and coins. If it is going to be carried rather than displayed, that is the choice worth making deliberately.
Elsewhere in the valley
Who else we build for here
- Nellis AFB
Squadron, wing and exercise coins for the units at Nellis — including the ones that rotate through for Red Flag and leave with something to remember it by.
- Creech AFB
Coins for the remotely piloted aircraft community, whose deployments look nothing like anyone else's and whose coins tend to say so.
- Nevada, statewide
Reno, Carson City, Fallon and the rural counties. Outside the delivery radius, so everything ships — which changes the timeline, not the coin.
- Las Vegas Metro Police
Area command, SWAT, K-9, Search and Rescue and academy class coins for the largest police department in Nevada.
- Clark County Fire
Station and company coins for CCFD, Las Vegas Fire & Rescue, Henderson and North Las Vegas — where the coin belongs to the house, not the department.
- Casino & hospitality
Service anniversary, host and security team coins for the property recognition programmes that run all year on this valley's largest employers.
- Conventions & trade shows
Booth coins for a show with a fixed date. The deadline is the whole job, and delivery to your hotel or the convention centre is the reason it works.
Ordering inside the valley? We deliver locally — no carrier, no tracking number, no waiting on a truck.