From silver to chocolate: LCS grad has hand in designing coin

Brian Yagel

Just when you think you've heard it all about today's economy eating up your money, you may want to consider there is now new "money" available to be eaten.

The new Louis Braille Bicentennial Silver Dollar, the first-ever U.S. coin to contain tactile, readable Braile, released March 26 at a special ceremony at the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) in Baltimore, Md., has been "minted" in chocolate as well as silver.

And, what's more, a Le Mars High School graduate had a hand in making it possible.

Brian Yagel, Charleston, S.C., the son of Ed and Linda Yagel, Hinton, working with NFB and U.S. Mint created the design for the chocolate replica in his ArtboyGrafix studios in Charleston.

The chocolate silver dollars, produced by the Chocolate Inn LTD Inc., Freeport, NY, "premiered" at the Baltimore coin launch ceremony.

"It was a fun project to be associated with," Yagel said regarding working on the replica of the coin recognizing the founder of the Braille system, Louis Braille.

"It was actually a relatively small and simple project," Yagel explained. "The basic art had been done earlier by the Mint, and all we had to do was whip up a version that worked in chocolate.

"There was no red tape, no forms in triplicate to contend with. It was a totally straightforward process," Yagel said. "It took us a few hours to muddle through the various versions until we had one that worked in chocolate. The really important thing we had to consider was that we had a design that both closely approximated the coin's design and one that still stamped well.

Fortunately Yagel said there were few "big hurdles" in the project.

"The exception is we found semi-sweet chocolate doesn't hold nearly as much detail as the silver alloy of the real coin and as a result, is decidedly less robust than the silver alloy," Yagel said.

"It was a matter of dumbing down the design again and again to really simplify the design to meeting the imprinting designs of the vendor." Yagel added. "When you attempted to stamp too much detain into the chocolate version, the chocolate would just melt."

Representatives of Mint and NFB were quick to accept the coin's final design, Yagel added.

"It was approved within 48 hours and moved on immediately to the chocolate vendor. They stamped some samples, and poof, it was done," he said.

Yagel, whose clients have included state and federal government agencies involved in a variety of both civilian and military projects, said the chocolate coin challenge came through a distributor, Stellar Promotions, Grand Rapids, Mich. with whom his company has worked on previous projects.

"Designs submitted earlier had apparently been unworkable, and it was a time-crunch situation," Yagel said. "The distributor wanted something immediately, and we were there to take it on."

Yagel's ArtboyGrafix firm, a graphic arts company supporting primarily printers, publishers, advertising agencies and promotional marketing companies across North America, also provides promotional items for a number of additional national groups and organizations.

Included among others on his accounts list are Dell, the U.S. Tennis Association and the PGA U.S. Open Tournaments.

Yagel said current plans are for him and his wife, Li, a mathematics professor at The Citadel, Charleston, and their son, Max, 4, to come back to northwest Iowa for a summer vacation and to, as he said, give his parents "some quality time" with their grandson.

In the meantime he said he'll be busy with his company's workload of additional projects for a variety of clients.

Will any of the chocolate silver dollars be coming with him?

Yagel expects the greater share of the chocolates will have been distributed elsewhere at various of the NFB coin-launch events. But he said he intends if at all possible to "snag a few" for his freezer with expectations that his son will enjoy eating them.

"I don't need any more chocolate in my diet at present," he joked.

Yagel confesses, meanwhile that his order is already in for purchase of one of the actual non-circulated proof Braille silver dollars seen as a collectible.

"They're pretty and shiny," he admitted with a smile. "I'm getting one."

Coin's history

The "premiering" of the chocolate silver dollars during the Baltimore U.S. Mint launch event was in conjunction with the National Federation of the Blind's (NFB) introduction of its national campaign to increase Braille literacy.

"Only 10 percent of the nation's blind youngsters are currently learning the Braille system," said Chris Danielsen, NFB public relations director, Baltimore. "The Federation hopes the new program can help break what we see as a Braille literacy crisis at the present time."

Twenty-nine NFB affiliates nationwide are being given the option of ordering the new chocolate Braille silver dollars to be used with fund-raising efforts at their discretion, Danielsen said.

The introduction of the candy coins in Baltimore involved the placing of the coins in a piņata that was broken by blind youngsters attending the unveiling of the Braille silver dollar, Danielsen said.

NFB's literacy effort, he added, is also being aided in its campaign through authorization of a portion of the sale of the silver dollars.

The funding will come from a $10 surcharge included in the purchase part of the coin, Danielsen said.