Today I’m sharing some great ideas to help you choose the perfect custom medals for your event. Whether you’re looking for custom sports medals to give as prizes, a unique gifts or custom awards medals, there’s plenty of ideas to help you get yours just right, within this blog post.
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Custom Race Medals
It will likely come as no surprise that most custom medals are given out in races. Whether it’s running, swimming or other sporting event, it’s worth considering adding the venue, race title and the date to each medal, along with choosing either bronze, silver and gold, or – for a more affordable option, 1st, 2nd and 3rd place medals.
So, if you’re looking to buy medals for a school sports day, you may want to include the school name, along with the year and “Sport’s Day”. You can then choose to add further customisation for each event, or just choose 1st, 2nd and 3rd place options, to allow for bulk ordering.
Custom Medals as Unique Gifts
It’s often a standing joke in family homes, that wives need a medal for putting up with their husband. With that in mind, why not consider purchasing a personalised medal as a unique anniversary gift? Imagine getting a silver medal for your 25th wedding anniversary, to celebrate surviving 25 years of marriage?
I think that would be a pretty cool gift, and you could go one further by giving a customised bronze medal to celebrate 8 years, a silver one for 25 and gold for 50 years of marriage. They’d look great displayed on the wall!
Custom Awards Medals
It’s not just winners who get medals these days. Plenty of places give out medals as awards now. The most popular award medal is, of course the Nobel Peace Prize.
Each year since 1901, a Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to recognise an individual (or organisation) “who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.” Some of the most famous winners include: The International Committee of the Red Cross (1917, 1944, 1963), Martin Luther King Jr. (1964), Nelson Mandela (1993), Barack Obama (2009), and the European Union (2012). Interestingly, Greta Thunberg has not yet won a Nobel Peace Prize.
It’s no surprise that many organisations are opting to give out custom awards medals instead of trophies, considering one of the world’s most famous accolades is a medal too. Some awards are given for life, while others are only “on loan” for a year, until the next winner is announced. So custom medals are a great, permanent award.
It’s worth considering all of this information before deciding what to have engraved on the medal though. Commonly included information ranges from the award name, the organisation name, and depending whether it’s presented for life or just on loan, you may want to add the year of issue and the name of the winner. For example, a medal may be given to the employee with the most annual sales, most commission earned, or even the most successful surgeries performed.
Custom Sports Medals for Teams
Customised sports medals are often given out to the top two teams of a season-long sporting event. For example, the winners of a local school football league, or the top two teams in a regional school swimming league, basketball or netball league. When there’s a lot of players within the team, it can be more cost effective to leave names off the medals, and instead add the winning school name to the medals, and issuing a certificate alongside the medal.
When my partner’s cricket team finished top of the local cricket league, each player on his team received a medal with their team name, the year of issue and the name of the league they’d won engraved onto it. Medals like that are something the winners will treasure forever, whether or not their own name is engraved on it.
Final Thoughts on Custom Medals
There’s a lot to be said for customising medals. I think most people who receive one will treasure their accolade, and they are a lot easier to look after and store than large trophies are. So for that reason, I’d choose a medal over a trophy, if the winner is keeping their prize permanently.
