Hey Guys... I'm looking to get a flipping coin, but I don't want it to have any specific association logo. I've seen the 9/11 commemoratives, but I think I'd rather get one that has just an umpire's mask, or a ball on one side and a bat on the other, or something generic like that. I checked at Honig's, GerryDavis, and pluspos, and all they have is the Zebra coin or football coins.

Any suggestions?

Lee

Being nearly a neighbor of Canada, I just use the Canadian $1 coin (the so-called "Loonie") It is a farily large (about the size of the Kennedy half-dollar) gold-colored coin with Queen E. on the head and a loon on the tail. I keep it well-shined. It is unusual enough (in the USA) to often get a comment or two.

Lee,

Go to the bank and see if they have any silver dollars.
Get a couple and keep'em handy. That is what I normally
use. NSA, NFHS, ASA, AFA, USSSA, they all have their own
but you stated you did not want a logo on it.

Flipping Coins
 

Go to a search engine such as "Alltheweb.com" and type in "The Pin Man". That is a vendor I have used to create trading pins when I or others from Indiana have had the chance to go to some Nationals. I believe you'll find some generic flipping coins on that site. If not that one go to another "pin" site and I'm sure you'll find something to your liking.

the Pin Man
 

In Seattle we have used the Pin Man for our coins and have had fabulous results...they can do almost anything for you. Many other associations have used them as well...you can see many samples (including ours) on their web site.

We have made some flipping coins for groups of officials before. They do have to be orders of over 100. But they are great for organizations or associations. Check us out on the web at www.spiritpins.com

I have a nice collection of military organization "challenge coins," including several duplicates. I use the dupes as flipping coins.

Am I just cynical or does this seem like someone set up a spam posting? Lee comes on here and posts about coins. Suddenly, spirit pins comes on here and makes very first post about coins???? Seems awfully suspicious to me, or maybe it's just the cop in me!!!

I doubt it. Spirit waited nearly 5 years before answering this post. ;)

Wow! That WAS a well thought out SPAM set up!!! :D

Well, I heard people in Washington were a little slow :D

Crap. You just woke up (apparently taking a break) SRW.

LOL, didn't read date on post. At least my spam radar is still intact!

Throughout an entire high-level SP tournament, I used a "gold" coin I found in the parking lot when I arrived. Actually, it was a "token" intended for use in certain, uh . . . entertainment arcades.

On the obverse (heads), the token depicted the figure of a young woman from the waist up; the reverse (tails) depicted the figure from the waist down. I will leave it to readers of this post to divine what degree of clothing was depicted on this figure. This flip coin was quite successful. Though players were accustomed to ASA flip coins, I received compliments on it throughout the tournament.

I believe it is of socio-anthropological interest that in all 28 games I did over the four days, everyone whose duty it was to call "heads" or "tails" made the same call (in the vernacular, of course).

A local umpire uses a Lincoln penny......that's six inches in diameter.

Gets a few chuckles, but everyone pays attention when he tosses it in the air.

ha thats funny

Although I have many coins, I just use a silver dollar I've used for a long time.

I know of some smart umps that may have on occasion used coins with Ambiguous head/tail .. for home team purposes.. I'm not that brave though.

One umpire I worked with a couple weeks ago in a Sunday afternoon SP coed league is a wrestling official as well. You can guess...yes, he used the red/green wrestling flipping coin.

But which side was heads? :rolleyes: ;) :D

I have something similar - a buffalo nickel that is 3 inches in diameter. When the family went to Disney World a few years ago, my son purchased about 20 of these 3 inch coins of various denominations and eras. He lost interest in them, so I commandeered the buffalo nickel as my coin of choice. And I only do one flip - heads, the 3B dugout team is home; tails, the 1B dugout team is home. And some coaches still whine if they're not home... "never even got a chance to call it!" Maybe they should just do "rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock".

You're just downright ornery. :D

Really? :rolleyes: Ya think so? ;) :cool:

I have sometimes fantasized about using a manhole cover and having it land on some coaches melons. "3n2 Heat will be taking the field first and their obnoxious coach to the emergency room."

Been having some bad experiences lately? :D

And I back up 2 steps when I see it. :)

Reading some of this reminds me of the time I used a casino dollar (it looked like a silver dollar, but with a steamboat on the tail side, and Mark Twain on the head side) during an Utrip state qualifier tournament in small city in Nebraska. It was a college town, so naturally there was a whole team of college boys (who were a bit on the tipsy side) in the tournament. When I had them for one game, their coach came out, and when I showed both coaches the coin, the college boy said "hot damn blue!" After the flip, he turned around and told his boys, "we got a cool blue! He's got a casino dollar!" I looked at the other coach and just shook my head. I knew this was going to get ugly. The college boys proceeded to get their collective a**es kicked by the mercy rule on their way out of the tournament.

I've never had to use a coion, but in case I'll have to got to use one I think I prefer a "Gulden". That's the old dutch coin before we started using the Euro. I guess a "Gulden" has to be something like $0,60?

On the other hand, Sonny Pompillii bought me one off his personal made coins... I could use that one too...

Every so often, I would like to flip Sonny. :D

That'd be a sight to see.

Speaking of coin tosses...
 

Never thought I'd write about it, but...

"Okay ladies, which of you travelled further?
Okay, team A, which one of you will call it?
Okay miss, what will you call?
Okay coach, home or away?"

Bull#@!!... that part of my pregame goes like this:
"You're heads, you're tails." flip, boom, let's play ball.

(oh, yeah, the winner does pick home or away)

I've done this all year, not one complaint yet.

Heck yeah! The first time I had a partner do it I was like, "Oh man why haven't I been doing this all along?" It went in my mental rolodex.

I have been doing that since, well, always!

I don't understand the issue with just letting the kids go through their little ritual.

I rarely see kids at a plate meeting, so this is just a more efficient way of getting things done. Case in point, plate meetings so far this year, probably around 200 or so. Plate meetings where kids were present: 0. Usually I will get one or maybe two a year where there are kids present at a plate meeting.

As I wrote, never have to use a coin, however you started to make me think... (once in a lifetime :rolleyes: )

The team that travelled further can't be playing "home", therefore skip that coin-thing.

"Okay coaches, team A has it's hometown closesedby, therefor they're playing home."
PlayBall!

One of the odd things that I experienced working NSA tournaments was that ALL the players from both teams were required to be at the plate meeting. Presumably so that they could hear the instructions about what was allowed and not allowed. I know you'll love this Wade...we were expected to remind the players that shirt tails were to be tucked in all the way around. Yeah, I thought it was OOO, but that seems to be SOP.

Also, after watching my partner do the double flip thing, when my turn came around I decided I wasn't going to do that. I only did a single flip, like I normally would. Later I was told that a double flip is required. It was "You're heads, you're tails", but the winner of that flip won the honor of calling the second flip. I didn't much care for that either. I was using my ASA flipping coin though!

I also had to get a kitchen timer. We not only had the PU running a timer, but the BU had to sync his timer with the PU and keep his over behind first base. I suppose that was for emergency purposes in case someone's timer ran out of battery power.

No, it was in case the KTTs (Kitchen Timer Troll) from the Northwest Region was lurking near your backstop and confiscated it.:D

:D :D
Second best of week ;)

get a double headed quarter. See how long it takes before a coach realizes it, especially if you only show them one side of it. :D