At Long Last: An Unofficial Anecdotal History of Challenge Coins • Howard Tayler

Kickstarter backers got the first alert, which is only fair because they're the ones who funded this two years ago. Our original delivery deadline was set for around six months after the Kickstarter closed. We only missed that by 18 months! Fortunately, the "how late are you?" clock can finally be stopped.

Available Now!

An Unofficial Anecdotal History of Challenge Coins is a free PDF full of challenge coin stories. It is not an authoritative attempt to codify the rules of coin challenges, nor is it a scholarly treatise creating an historical narrative. It is a collection of stories that are similar to the sorts of stories you might hear if a bunch of people were sitting around at the bar one night draining pints and talking about challenge coins. We've done our best to present these stories in a way that respects the various challenge coin traditions, and pays appropriate tribute to those who have served.

Hosting

The document is currently hosted in two places:

If you would like to host this document yourself, you may!

Licensing

This document was released under the terms of Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0 International, which means that you are allowed to share the document freely, and you may remix, transform, and re-distribute the document provided you notify us, credit us in your document, and create a publicly accessible change-log.

Life-Cycle

The life-cycle of this document is an open question. It is possible that we will be able to update and maintain it regularly (semi-annually?) incorporating new content from the widely varied challenge coin communities. It is also possible for us to hand the whole project, source files and all, to someone else for maintenance. For the time being, however, we, Sandra and I, own this, and will endeavor to correct anything that's wrong with it.

We do not yet have this in eBook format. We lack expertise with those file formats. Volunteers? See "Contact Information" below.

There are no plans for a print edition, but the CC BY-SA license allows anyone to upload this to a Print-On-Demand service and create just that sort of thing.

As of this writing the document is version 0.99. We expect a rash of edits (rash, red, get it?) to come in during the next few weeks, at which point the document will be updated to Version 1. The version number goes up by hundredths and tenths when small edits are made, and whole numbers when content is added. The edition number changes in whole numbers only, and only when new content is added. The cover and title page will be updated to reflect this.

Our journey—Sandra's and mine—with this document has been drawn out a bit further than anyone would have liked, and has induced exhilaration, guilt, anxiety attacks, and spurts of creative fury in various turns. At some point we may tell that story, but this page and this book are not the place for it.

Contact Information

Please direct all inquiries to schlockmercenary@gmail.com, and include the unpronounceable acronym "UAHCC" in the subject line. We welcome submissions, hosting updates, suggested changes, and requests for source.

(cross-posted from howardtayler.com)