Most challenge coins travel downward. A commander hands one to a sailor, a chief hands one to a visitor. This USS Ronald Reagan coin went the other way: it was made to be presented to the ship’s captain by the people who served under them. A coin going up the chain is a different object from one going down it, and the design reflects that, with an elliptical outline, the carrier embossed over a globe in enamel color, and a deliberately plain reverse.
A Coin Given Up the Chain of Command
This is a small category and it deserves its own thinking, because the usual assumptions are reversed.
A coin presented downward is an instrument of the office. It is given at the giver’s discretion, in quantity, and its job is to recognize the recipient. A coin presented upward is a thank-you from a crew, a division or a mess to one person. It says something about how the people who served under that officer felt about it, which is not a thing rank can require.
Four consequences follow.
- It should be better made than the standard coin. A command coin is produced in volume for general issue. This one is a gift, so it is the place to spend on a custom outline, heavier gauge, enamel and finish.
- It is going to be displayed. A captain who receives a coin from their crew keeps it, usually in a case, a shadow box or on a desk. Design it knowing it will sit face-up in one position for years.
- The ship is the subject, not the officer. Putting the recipient’s name or rank on it makes the coin about them. Putting the ship on it makes the coin about what they did, which is the more generous version and the one that ages better.
- Nobody above them ordered it. Which means the group paying for it decides the design, and it is worth them agreeing it among themselves before artwork rather than after a proof.
A Ship in Front of a Globe
The front has the carrier embossed with the globe behind her, and it is the right composition for a ship with a worldwide job. It is also a harder layering problem than it looks.
A ship and a globe compete, because both want to be large and both have strong silhouettes. Three things keep them separate.
Put real relief between them. The vessel needs to sit clearly above the globe, not beside it. Depth does the separating that drawing cannot.
Simplify the globe hard. It is a background, so it needs continents as recognizable silhouettes plus latitude and longitude lines, and nothing else. Accurate coastlines at coin size turn into texture and start competing with the ship’s outline.
Let the ship cross the globe’s edge. If the vessel sits wholly inside the sphere she looks contained by it. Breaking the outline, with the bow or the flight deck crossing the globe’s rim, puts her unmistakably in front.
Why an Elliptical Outline Suits a Globe
The coin is elliptical rather than round, and on this particular design that is doing structural work rather than just looking different.
A globe is a circle. A round coin is a circle. Put one inside the other and you have two concentric circles close in size, so the rim and the globe’s edge echo each other and the eye cannot tell which circle it is meant to read. It is the same problem as a picture frame the same shape as the picture.
An ellipse breaks that. The outline is no longer the same shape as the subject, so the globe reads as a sphere sitting inside a frame rather than as a ring inside a ring. The ellipse also gives more horizontal room than a circle of the same height, which suits a ship. For more on this outline, see the NAVSUP oval coin.
A Display Face and a Handling Face
The client asked for one colorful side and one monochrome, clean and uncomplicated side. On a presentation coin that split has a specific logic that does not apply to a general issue coin.
A coin given to one person is displayed, which means one face is visible almost all of the time and the other almost never. So the two faces are not equals competing to be the front. One is the display face and gets the color, the relief and the detail. The other is the face that only gets seen when the coin is picked up, and its job is to reward that moment with something quiet and well made: clean lettering, a motto, a date.
Resisting the urge to decorate the second face is the discipline here. A presentation piece with two busy sides has no resting point, and the person who owns it will be looking at it for a very long time.
About USS Ronald Reagan
USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) is the ninth Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, built at Newport News in Virginia and commissioned on 12 July 2003. She is named for Ronald Reagan, the fortieth President of the United States, and her motto is Peace Through Strength.
Two points on the current page need correcting. She was not the first aircraft carrier permanently forward-deployed to Japan; she took that role at Yokosuka in 2015 from USS George Washington, and carriers had been forward-deployed there for decades before that. And she is no longer forward-deployed at all. She left Yokosuka in 2024 when USS George Washington resumed the role, and her homeport is now Naval Base Kitsap in Washington State.
That last fact is worth noting here. Embleholics is in Port Orchard, in Kitsap County, so USS Ronald Reagan’s homeport is now a few minutes away. See more challenge coins in Washington State, a USS Abraham Lincoln coin, and a USS Nimitz coin.
Order a Presentation Coin
Tell us who the coin is for and who is giving it, because a piece presented to one person is designed differently from a coin issued in quantity. Send the ship or command emblem and the motto, and say which face should be the display side.
Professional artwork is free with unlimited revisions, the minimum order is 50 coins, and nothing goes into production until you approve a digital proof. Standard production runs about 45 to 50 days after final artwork approval, rush production is available on many projects, and shipping within the continental United States is included. Embleholics is veteran-owned, SDVOSB and registered in SAM.gov. See more Navy challenge coins.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a USS Ronald Reagan challenge coin?
A USS Ronald Reagan challenge coin is a coin for the crew or a department of CVN 76, the ninth Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. This particular one was made as a presentation piece for the ship’s commanding officer, which is why it uses a custom elliptical outline and enamel color rather than the plainer treatment a general issue ship’s coin would have.
Can a crew give a challenge coin to their commanding officer?
Yes, and it is a distinct kind of coin. A coin going up the chain is a gift from the people who served under that officer rather than an instrument of the office, so it is usually better made than the standard command coin, it is designed knowing it will be displayed, and it puts the ship rather than the officer’s name at the center.
How many coins should be made for a presentation piece?
The minimum order is 50, which is more than a single presentation needs, so these are usually designed to serve both purposes: one goes to the officer and the rest go to the group that paid for it, or the design is used as the division’s own coin afterwards.
How do you put a ship and a globe on the same coin?
Separate them by depth rather than by drawing. The vessel needs real relief above the globe, the globe needs simplifying to continent silhouettes with latitude and longitude lines only, and the ship should cross the globe’s outline so she reads as being in front of it rather than contained inside it.
Why does an elliptical coin suit a globe design?
Because a globe is a circle and so is a round coin, so the rim and the globe’s edge echo each other and the eye cannot tell which circle to read. An ellipse breaks that match, so the globe reads as a sphere inside a frame, and it also gives more horizontal room than a circle of the same height, which suits a ship.
Should one side of a presentation coin be left plain?
Yes. A coin given to one person is displayed, so one face is visible nearly all the time and the other only when it is picked up. Give the display face the color and the relief, and let the other carry clean lettering, a motto or a date. A presentation piece with two busy faces has no resting point.
What is USS Ronald Reagan’s motto?
Peace Through Strength. She is named for Ronald Reagan, the fortieth President of the United States, and was commissioned on 12 July 2003 at Newport News in Virginia.
Where is USS Ronald Reagan homeported?
Naval Base Kitsap in Washington State. She was the forward-deployed carrier at Yokosuka in Japan from 2015 until 2024, when USS George Washington resumed that role and Reagan relocated to the Pacific Northwest.
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