Dad Coins

Plywood, Spray paint, pen.

My piece was inspired by a drugstore item of fake plastic coins. During this project I was required to use digital fabrication in order to create multiples of something, each functionally the same. Looking at the plastic coins I am reminded of a saying my dad used to tell me as I left the house, “Don’t take any wooden nickels.” To me this was like my dad’s lighthearted way of saying to be careful. After doing some research I found that the saying comes from the great depression and it was meant to warn folks going into the cities that people will try to scam them with wooden nickels. Nowadays a wooden nickel is more of a token you receive from somewhere that you can keep as a souvenir. 

I created a two sided coin design on Illustrator with an outline of my father’s face on one side. When I had the design cut out with the CNC router I had the digital fabricator (my teacher Asa) cut down about an 8th of an inch on the inside of the coin, leaving my dads outline. I sanded both sides down, glued them together, and painted each one white to prepare for adding the silver. To save time I used silver spray paint and sprayed them all down together. After I sprayed them down I added silver details with a chrome oil based paint pen. Lastly, I added details with an ink pen.

To maintain the integrity of it being a nickel, I knew I had to have a face on one side, and who better to put on the nickel than the inspiration for the whole project, my dad, Kurt Dammermann. The backside was more of a challenge, but after thinking about it enough I thought that I would stick to the theme and include a dad joke. The symbols on the back are an ear, eye, nose, mouth, and hand, representing that the nickel is worth 5 sense. I made 15 of these coins and passed them out to my class in exchange for something that they made. I hope they find somewhere they can spend their 5 sense.