We opened our doors originally as Happy Dog Online Military Collectibles featuring military patches back in 2000. Things were going great through website and eBay sales. We wanted to expand and make room for much more. On Febuary 14th, 2006 we switched our site to Military Challenge Coin .net, losing the HD Online forever. Our first site with the new name and look was purely HTML and nothing dynamic. We did very well to start off as we moved into coins along with our continued growing inventory.

Military Challenge Coin .net changed its look forever in August of 2006 going to a very dynamic website to allow for a shopping cart, articles, contributors, forum, Wiki, auctions, and much more. We were by far one of the few first sites to start from the beginning of the online craze in 2000. Here 7 years later we are still creating and representing the industry of military collectibles.

Some of the ideas to build a forum came from a friend, Jesse Medford, through his establishment of the eBay group…Challenge Coin Association. I received an email from him one day asking me many business related questions and at first went on the guard in case it was a competitor. After some thought the questions were answered and I eventually was led to the CCA group since I was already a registered user on eBay.

After about 5 months of using the group Jesse founded I realize the multitude of restrictions eBay had in place to maintain the eBay integrity. I had no issues with the rules of linking off eBay sites, limited features, must be a user of eBay to participate, and other areas. This is in no way to say the group is either dead or not enjoyable. So it lead me to brainstorm about having a place collectors can freely come to engage in an open land with lots of features to enjoy at no cost to them.

Hence, Military Challenge Coin .net Forum was born! The first truly full featured forum the hobby has seen that serves all kinds of collectors. A lot of people enjoyed the usage of both groups because they could have the best worlds. The forum was a great addition without a doubt and helped gain momentum in the collecting world. We couldn’t stop with just a forum though. We soon began to add new features like the Milipedia, which is an off-shoot of the Wiki for military information only. Articles from contributors began to flow, and the store got bigger and bigger.

For several months I had begun using my graphic design skill to design challenge coins. I was terrible at it at first but my schooling in college really helped. A few of my members started encouraging me to offer custom coins services to the site. I didn’t want just another service you could get anywhere. With my competitive edge, we opened our new service on January 7, 2007. I needed to be #1, but perhaps not #1 in quantity, but at least in everything else.

I did something no one has ever done before; I offered my custom coin service at no charge except whatever the factory charged me. Designing was free, the service was free, and everybody benefited. This model may be copied but it will never be the same. No matter who tells you what, I would put my best design up against anyone in the industry to prove my quality and that statement still rings with all the customers around the world that have decided to try the new service out.

Military Challenge Coin .net has been a first in many areas from collector’s view in articles, free custom coin jobs, challenge coin contests, coin database of all the coins around the world, to challenge coin blogging with industry professionals, and the next giant step is an online/offline magazine called the Challenge Coin Quarterly that I collaborated with Jesse once again in hopes to bring the best of two worlds together. With so many firsts in the industry, it might be hard to stop developing and taking this hobby to a new place in the future.

Once we started settling in on our new adventure of being the biggest collecting site in the world, we wanted to add new things to help attract collectors. Our business model from the very beginning in 2000 was to make money, and a lot of it, but still offer a large portion for free. We never hide behind everything else we do, but we insist on doing those free things to build a better hobby and give back to the collector’s that have helped us through the years. We may not sell the most, but we will certainly give you more than you can ever imagine.

We have done everything from Nationally Syndicated Interviews, charity for troops deployed to Iraq, and given large amounts of time and effort in educating new collectors from all around the world. We like to give as much as we take and by doing this we earn the respect of the collectors and customers out there that use our services on a daily basis. This of course is a brief look at our history but it gives you the reader a more involved look as the company has grown from just a Paypal store to the biggest open community in the world.