Floppy Disks: The perfect coins for Techstalgics

Posted on2 Months ago 759

Nostalgic or "Techstalgic"?

Have you ever experienced nostalgia? How many times have you found yourself in front of an object that you haven't used in a long time and felt transported into the past? And how many times have you felt nostalgic looking at a technological object that was once your tool for a long time?

We at Power Coin are aware that we speak to a niche audience when we talk about numismatics, especially the modern kind, an audience attentive to details who appreciates meaningful specifics. For this reason, we have decided to recreate these well-recognizable details in a coin, whose name can evoke nostalgic but always vivid memories.

As the first coin in this new series, Techstalgic, we have chosen the Floppy Disk, an object that has become an icon of early mass technologies in the collective imagination. We debuted the series at the World Money Fair in Berlin, presenting the coin in two versions, and we received excellent feedback from the audience, who came to our booth multiple times to ask to see the floppy disks up close and take a dive into their past.

We were very happy to hear your opinions, and for this article, we want to invite you to dig deep with us into our floppy disks.

Your past in Silver

The Floppy Disk is a 2 oz coin made of pure .999 silver, and we decided to utilize techniques different from our usual ones, creating various finishes to enhance the elements of the coin and allow those observing the piece, including those who have never seen floppy disks, to understand that what they see is not just a simple square block of silver.

The silver coin is perfect for admiring all the finishes used. In fact, a light frosting and a heavy frosting are used to distinguish between the plastic protection (where the magnetic disk was contained inside) and the section where the shutter was inserted, which uses an additional frosting technique to stand out from the other elements. The bottom part, where the label was inserted, presents the important information contained within our Floppy, namely the mintage of 499 pieces, the purity of the silver, and the weight of the coin.

The most attentive observers will notice how mirrored elements are present at the 4 corners, namely the arrow, the High-Density symbol, and the two squares at the bottom: a third style of finish to allow these refined details to stand out.

Turning the coin over, we will find the same finishes, but I would like to invite you to pay attention to the Coat of Arms, located inside a circle with a mirrored finish. Even an inattentive eye will notice that the mirrored circle is not perfectly centered, and this is because the spindle of the disk was never positioned in the perfect center of the floppy disk, but it was slightly movable and it was possible to move it with your fingers, so much so that many passers-by at the fair pleasantly noticed this detail, remembering how they used to play with it as children.

A touch of colour

We could have stopped there, but here at Power Coin, we like to go big, and we decided to mint a second version of the Floppy, this time colored, to allow collectors to take a real leap into the past. Many have told us that the colored coin was easily mistaken for a real Floppy, and that was our goal: our piece measures 50mm, which corresponds to 1.98 inches, so we are talking about a smaller object compared to the original 3.5-inch High-Density Floppy disk that captured our hearts in the 90s.

One last detail that we want to bring to your attention is the label, more prominent in the colored version compared to the other. If you remember well, many of our coins feature our logo hidden in the design, and the floppy disk is no exception: indeed, the label has the same color as our logo!

The two Floppy Disks were a great success at the World Money Fair; many of you asked for information and made purchases, and we couldn't be more grateful. They are selling like hotcakes, so hurry up!