The cards are impressing the liberty crowd

This weekend we have been introducing the new Shire Silver card format at the Free State Project's annual Liberty Forum.  So far the response has been overwhelming! (Literally. Ron slept ten hours last night recovering from the exhilaration.)

Almost everyone thought the card containing the actual metal was a very good idea. Even those who didn't immediately love the idea were willing to suggest ways to improve the product. We also got some new ideas for marketing as well as some very interesting business ideas. (We'll try to give credit where it is due, but please forgive us if we forget. It was a very busy and exciting day.)

Card Improvement Idea

Boston T Party suggested that the gold cards should be one color, and the silver ones another color; with no hue variation like the prototypes have. Seth Cohn added that perhaps a stripe of a different color on the base color could indicate the amount. We like these ideas and will be looking at them seriously.

A few people mentioned ways to improve the placement of the metal in the card, as well as ways to make the card look more professional. (Side note: most of the less than stellar quality is due to Ron's limited fine motor skill. A person with better hand-eye coordination and proper tools can make them look better.) Tarrin Lupo showed Ron a better technique for coiling the longer silver wires.

Seth also suggested that we could emboss our cards as a method of counterfeit protection. Various other people came up with more counterfeiting ideas as well. Most people accepted our arguments that the ability to verify the makeup of the cards isn't as neccessary as they tend to think.

We are looking into manufacturers for a large batch of the cards. Discussions with these companies might reveal other improvements we can make.

Marketing

Ernie Hancock suggested some ideas for advertising that we will certainly use. Scott Beiser of Big Head Press had an interesting product placement idea. Definitely check out both of these guys' work as they are a huge boon to the liberty movement.

Business

One business idea we got is that we can have people wanting to make their own branded cards just send us their logo and we'll make them. This is a good idea, although it does go against the massively distributed production model we at Shire Silver are trying to build.

We could also certify brands, getting a bond from the prospective production partners and inspecting their work.

Website

We do still need to add the page showing the card values in the primary local currency. For example, a lot of people will want to see how much each card is worth in U.S. Dollars. That page will probably go up this week.

Pre-Orders

Finally, we are taking pre-orders now on the website. These are not actual purchase orders, just an indication to us of the demand so we can tell the manufacturer we select how many to produce. If you have read this far, then you certainly should make a pre-order yourself - even if it is only a few cards. It all adds up!