ARTICLE FEATURES CIA CHALLENGE COINS

The coveted coins are cloaked in secrecy, just like the spy agency that produces them. So what are ­CIA-commissioned mementos — brass “challenge coins” most commonly associated with the military — doing up for sale on the Internet and by private dealers?

The unclassified coins represent something rare in agency culture: tangible and often darkly humorous acknowledgments of specific CIA stations abroad and operations divisions. Some coins contain symbols whose meanings are known only to insiders.

For such coins to disseminate widely — via eBay, no less — appears to fly in the face of the CIA’s tight-lipped and proudly cryptic culture. The agency, after all, doesn’t let ordinary people tour its museum or visit its Memorial Wall honoring slain officers. In some cases, employees can’t invite their own relatives to their own awards ceremonies.

Yet nearly 200 miles north of the CIA’s headquarters, a small business called Coin Squadron buys and sells pieces of Langley lore from the cramped basement of a converted church in Washington Crossing, Pa., right by the banks of the Delaware River.

This summer, Coin Squadron sold coins for the Iran operations division, the covert influence group within the agency’s Special Activities Division, and one that said, “Pipe Hitters Local 391” — 3 representing C; 9 for I; 1 for A. The coin’s back shows a smiling clown with an often-heard military slogan: “Be Polite, Be Professional, But Have a Plan to Kill Everyone You Meet.”

“I got that one from a guy thinning his herd. He was retired. They made 50 of them. It was for some Special Operations group,” said Joe Wallace, Coin Squadron’s ­co-founder, whose shop has introduced him to current or retired members of the intelligence community. “Because of the business I’m now in, I get to talk to people I’d never get to talk to. They’re so proud of what they did. You feel it in them.”

Wallace says the spy currency comes directly from present or former employees or contractors. His freshest batch: a coin honoring the Tel Aviv station, another for the Pakistan ­operations group, and a third for a surveillance technology group that was staked out near Osama bin Laden’s compound in ­Abbottabad.

The going price can soar into the hundreds of dollars, ­sometimes exceeding $1,000. For each one.

In a statement to The ­Washington Post, the CIA didn’t express concern that its ­challenge coins are being traded in the public domain. A spokesman said the agency uses the coins as a “non-monetary award” to recognize exceptional ­employees. Agency employees in offices across the United States and world are free to design whatever coin they’d like, the spokesman said.

But eBay is also rife with fakes — coins that didn’t originate with agency people or that were copied by outsiders. In an interview, one former CIA security protective officer said he only buys and sells online with a few trusted sources.

“You also don’t want to sell it to a guy who’s going to start reproducing it and make 1,000 fakes off the one legit one,” the former protective officer said.

The one he’d really like? A coin nicknamed “Bush X” or “Maya.” But that coin is hard to find on the open market.

One Maya coin is kept in the collection in New York City at the 9/11 Memorial Museum. It was donated by “Maya,” the alias of the CIA operative whose tenacious hunt for bin Laden was dramatized in the 2012 movie “Zero Dark Thirty.” The coin features a red X on the front and the date of the bin Laden operation on the back — May 1, 2011. The 9/11 Memorial Museum said former president George W. Bush always drew a big red X through each al-Qaeda operative whenever they got killed or ­arrested.

To read the complete article, see:
CIA challenge coins: Secret symbolism, dark humor can be had for a price on eBay www.washingtonpost.com/local/cia-challenge-coins-symbolism-and-dark-humor-can-be-had-for-a-price-on-ebay/2016/09/21/94e65cf4-7134-11e6-8365-b19e428a975e_story.html)

To read the earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY MEDALS (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v13n02a16.html)
SOME MORE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY MEDALS (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v13n06a14.html)
CIA INFORMATION OPERATIONS CENTER MEDAL (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v18n25a25.html)

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