The Coin Display That Finally Gave a Veteran's Coins a Home

My brother Ray keeps things. Not in a hoarding way, just quietly, in drawers and on closet shelves. His discharge papers live in a manila envelope. A faded ball cap with nothing printed on it hung in the garage. And for years, twenty-six challenge coins sat in a cigar box on the top shelf of his closet.

I am not a veteran. I was too young for the draft and I never served, and I say that plainly because I will not borrow what is not mine. Ray served. Navy, 1970 to 1974, a machinist's mate.

In mid January, Walt Nowak died at eighty-one. He was Navy, a friend of Ray's from the post, and I went to the funeral with him. A few days later I stopped at Marge's house, and Walt's burial flag was still in its plastic sleeve on her kitchen table. I went home and took our father's flag out of the dresser drawer where it had sat since 2009.

That is what put me on Amazon in February. DisplayGifts makes a Military Challenge Coin Display, seven tiers, wall mounted, and that is the one I ordered the first week of March along with four other things. It was not a gift anybody asked for. It was the thing I kept coming back to when I thought about that cigar box.

It came in early March. Ray opened the box on his kitchen table and dumped the coins out, and then he did something I did not expect. He sorted them. By ship first, then by year, and he had a story about nearly every one. Twenty-six coins went up onto those seven rows, plus two small medals he dug out of a drawer. There is still plenty of open room, which matters, because he is not finished collecting.

I hung it for him the following Saturday with a stud finder and a level, and it took about half an hour. The metal brackets are already on the back of the case when it comes out of the box, so the job is finding the stud and driving two screws. It is on the wall of his den now, at eye level, where he sits.

Twenty-six coins, two small medals, and a wall in the den that finally says something.

The case itself is straightforward, and I mean that as a compliment. Seventeen and a half inches tall, fourteen inches wide, an inch and three quarters deep. Seven rows. Each shelf has grooves cut into it so the coins sit down in them instead of sliding when the door slams. The distance between rows is two inches, except the top and bottom rows, which are two and a quarter. It comes with a six month manufacturer warranty.

What I did not expect was how much a display changes the way a man talks. Ray shows that wall now. Dale came by in April and stood in front of it for five minutes. Hank asked where it came from. Ray picks a coin and tells you the ship, and then he stops, and then he tells you another one. None of that happened when the coins were in a box on a shelf he could not reach without a step stool.

There are honest complaints. The coins sit out in the open, so they collect dust and want a wipe every few weeks. Ray has no oversized coins, but if your veteran does, a two inch row may not take a tall one, and I would measure before ordering. It is heavy, better than four pounds, so it wants a stud or a real anchor and not a plastic plug in drywall. And it is strictly a wall piece. It does not stand on a table or a mantel, so if the room has no wall to give, this is the wrong shape of gift.

The other thing worth saying is that this is a display for someone who already has a collection. Ray had twenty-six coins and nowhere to put them, which is why it landed the way it did. If your veteran has four coins in a drawer and no interest in them, this is furniture he did not ask for, and it will hang there empty.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

I would ask you two questions before I said anything about buying. How many coins does he have, and does he have a wall in a room he actually sits in? If the answer is a handful, wait. If the answer is a box in a closet and a wall in the den, then yes, and get the seven tier DisplayGifts rather than the smaller one, because the small ones fill up and then you are shopping again in a year. I would also tell you to hang it yourself instead of handing it over in the box. Half an hour with a stud finder is the difference between a gift and something that leans in a corner until it gets moved to the garage. And I would tell you what I told Ray, which is to put the first coin in it yourself and let him rearrange the rest. He will. Give him the evening. That sorting is the part he will remember, not the case.