Board Game Designers Forum

I use full page label sheets and I put them on chipboard. It gives a nice thickness, and doesn't require gluing at all. Fast and efficient. It costs me less than 50 cents per sheet (not including ink). Circle counters are tough to cut out by hand using this method. I stick with square counters and a rotary cutter. Zips right through them.

Pennies are a good idea, and for their nice weight and heft, just about impossible to beat.

However, at least in terms of pricing, think chipboard or matboard instead of tons of sheets of cardstock, as it's cheap and thick already.

I use a Sizzix craft die cutter to cut out my circle tokens. They're perfect, as it were, but a lot of work, and the die has limited sizes (nothing as small as I'd like for some projects).

I've used the same technique with just pennies as counters, without actually pasting any paper on either side. I hadn't actually considered using pennies with "covers". Great!

Check out http://www.cricut.com/default.aspx
$100 and you may be able to cut chipboard. Check out their forums. It is expensive but if you prototype alot it may be worth it.

The Cricut can cut chipboard, or so it's said around the net, but with the caveat that (a) it takes multiple passes, having to cut many times over the same area to make it through the chipboard, (b) I have heard of alignment problems, where you have to take great pains to ensure that everything stays lined up from cut to cut, which is said to be difficult, and (c) because it's making so many cuts, the blade wears out comparatively quickly.
 
All that being true, I've still considered getting one. I believe you have to buy extra stuff (software, connection kit or something?) to attach it to a PC, rather than buying the (surprisingly expensive) cartridges and living with whatever they've pre-programmed.

I am thinking of getting one as well. I live in Utah and I know quite a few board members do as well. If they want to pay maybe a small fee, I could cut out custom pieces ect for them to help offset the cost.

I have always toyed with this idea, and maybe an idea of all the board members going into a 3d printer, in which it would stay at one members house (not mine) and we could pay for materials and some money for time to get 3d models printed off as well, but for a fraction of the price retail 3d printers are asking for.

Again this simple statement is wrought with complexities, but it might be possible some time with 3d printers getting cheaper and cheaper.

Coins also have significant downsides.

First, they are heavy. Any game using more than forty or so will have you lugging a relatively heavy package around.

Second, they are dense. This can become a problem if you've got other components the pennies interact with. They "ding" cardboard components very easily, and their edges can scratch and dent anything but plastic.

Third, the images on pennies make them wear through labels surprisingly quickly.

Lastly, they are poor stackers. If you need o keep your tokens stacked, chipboard or plastic tokens are the way to go.

That said, coins are effective quicky prototypers, being uniform and plentiful. But keep in mind you may not love them as much, once the game begins.

Having made a prototype with about 200 pennies and having play tested and traveled with the game I just want to let you know how they hold up...

Are they heavy? About .25 lbs I mean if you are shipping based on weight you might save 10-20 cents, maybe. My playtesters even said they like the feel of the coins.

Do they damage other components. Not yet and we have been doing some serious traveling and playing.

Do the images of Abe wear through the paper. Not yet and I have used normal printing paper, if you are worried about that cardstock would wear even better.

Finally, do they stack well, yes. I didn't even design a game where you were suppose to stack the tokens and I noticed that players naturally stacked the tokens for orginization. They stack great.

So hypothetically those are all the problems with pennies, I think if you give it a shot you will be surprised (as was I) to how well they hold up and how good they mimic the look and feel of game tokens.