These do look nice coins, have you considered selling them unfunded?
Yes and no...
Company mission is to help adoption and introduce a new audience to bitcoin, so had no intentions to sell unfunded (guess target market would not be able to do this)
Quickly discovered many of bitcoin community would like to fund coins themselves (or want 2-factor/ multi-factor authentication, or many do not want anyone having access to their private key(s) at any time, all of which are fair enough points, but each of these also have their disadvantages)
The issue is what if someone buys unfunded and resells as funded? (would damage our image and leave us open to legal action?)
Guess we could make a non-denomination coin (but still with keys engraved/ hologram in place) that could be suitable for this
If it happens will send you the 001, but not planned yet I'm afraid (not convinced sufficient demand/ lower margins etc- would be cheaper to find an old coin and get one side smoothed/ engraved?)
Have a look at CrypArt.com for unfunded physical bitcoins......(launching soon)
Surely people would be able to check the public address on the back of the coin to figure out if it has funds on it? It would be a bit silly to buy a coin without photos of the front and back. You could differentiate the hologram writing colour like the lealana coin does. Black for manufacturer funded, green for buyer funded. I don't think you would be responsible if someone sold a coin as funded, when they knew it was not.
Yes they could (and we could still provide corresponding QR code in box to make this easier), but still brings risks....
Like the Lealana coins (built up a small collection of physical BTC/LTC as part of research), but think TGBEX is targeting a different market
Physical coins have been a novelty, enthusiasts like them as it helps explain the concept to people, but for a more serious investor, plastic/ cheap coins with keys on paper and glue do not seem sensible?
By engraving keys onto quality bronze alloy/ silver metals TGBEX coins will last longer and by having proper procedures, controls and compliance, we believe are a more 'investable' proposition (Antana coins are also great, but think I would rather rely on CADD systems to engrave keys, rather than any human?)
Plus think it might confuse non-enthusiasts if we were selling funded and unfunded? (friend has had an unfunded sample coin for a few months and has persuaded people/ could have sold it 4 or 5 times as loaded (admittedly always late on in pubs....))
Easy to get carried away with bitcoin and forget at least 90% (99%?) of people would not know how to check if loaded (and if it says 5BTC on it then some poeple might think that is good enough?