Thanks to my komrad Marco Ramius for giving me this at one of his events under his regular geocaching name here in San Diego back in 2023. I completely forgot I owned it and noticed it was unactivated. Since I was going on vacation, I decided to activate and let others enjoy it.
While investigation infomation on how this coin came to be, I discovered another trackable page in German (thanks to geocacher Compubaer) that fully explains it. Feel free to read below.
Carol from the Canadian review team Cache Effekt and ThunderEggs aka Marla wrote to me about how the Class of 2006 Reviewer (15 yrs) Geocoin presented here came about.
At the beginning of 2021, ThunderEggs came up with the idea of creating a special geocoin for the 15th anniversary of the uninterrupted volunteer work of 15 reviewers and moderators for the team of 15 and the geocaching community. First, she talked to OReviewer about it.
In February, the idea was pitched to the other 13 reviewers and moderators and, of course, everyone agreed, because having 15 people sharing the cost makes the coins more affordable.
In the weeks that followed, BoJaB swapped as a reviewer for Florida,
btreviewer, who in addition to his reviewer work also translates Groundspeak content and apps into Portuguese and moderates the Groundspeak forums in Portugal and Brazil,
swapped
Cache Effect as a review team for Alberta,
Cascade Reviewer as a former reviewer and currently volunteer moderator for the geocaching forums,
Chuck Walla as a reviewer for Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana,
Heartland Cacher as a reviewer for Nebraska and Wyoming,
MadMin as a reviewer for Massachusetts,
Marko Ramius as a reviewer for Southern California,
Nomex as a reviewer for Northern California,
OReviewer as reviewer for Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware,
palmetto as reviewer for Florida,
riviouveur from Alsace as reviewer for France and Belgium,
Sapience Trek as reviewer for New York,
ThunderEggs as reviewer for Oregon and
Thymallus Thymallus as reviewer for Finland and Åland.
ThunderEggs and OReviewer then summarized all the ideas and came up with some design ideas.
In collaboration with the Canadian geocoin company Landsharkz, a design draft was created, which was presented to all reviewers in April 2021. A few more changes have been made by the group.
The team opted for 5 background colors and 7 metal pads.
Each reviewer could order as many of each of the 35 variants as they wanted and paid for their own coins. There was no order for a metal variant at all.
Sharkzcoins had the 344 geocoins ordered manufactured in China after the photos of the sample coins were approved in August 2021.
Since this project was very international (reviewers from the US, Canada and Europe, the Canadian shop and the Asian production company), Landsharkz and ThunderEggs shared the work.
The Chinese manufacturer delivered the Canadian coins to Landsharkz for shipping, and all other coins went to ThunderEggs for shipping.
Landsharkz raised money from the Canadian and European reviewers, ThunderEggs sent out the U.S. and European geocoins, which began arriving at the 15 long-time volunteers on October 24, 2021.
The Geocoin was released in the editions Antique Silver, Polished Silver, Black Nickel, Antique Bronze, Satin Silver and Gold as well as in Shiny Gold. The translucent colours of blue, yellow, green, orange and purple were chosen to outline the inner surface of the circle.
The 58 x 50 x 4 mm and 48 g hexagon geocoin in the shape of a bottle opener shows Signal on the front next to the lettering "Friends of the Frog for 15 Years!".
The nicknames of the 15 volunteers who reached their 15th anniversary as reviewers/moderators in 2021 are listed all around.
On the back, the official geocaching.com logo is in the centre, above it "15 Years 15 Volunteers", on the left and right the two years 2006 and 2021.