I have two Gold Coins from Australia I am sure in 1980, and each has a slightly different make-up engraving of Eric Carr.



Can anyone tell me where these coins came from...did you buy them in Australia, were they give-away's, or what. I am interested in the history of these items.

Cheers,

Kenny

ps...here's to a KISS Down Under Tour in November!!

I got my first one back in the day from a KISS army order form. There are actually 3 different designs and 2 different thinkness coins. I dunno why.
I have this many these days, I think it'll be to hard to pick the 3 designs in this pic.

great rego plate in your avatar too. Is that on your car?

I remember buying a Kiss magazine just before they toured here in Nov 1980 - it had all sorts of adverts for things like Kiss Ice Creams, a Kiss Jacket (may have been a silver one with rainbow coloured Kiss logo) and of course these Kiss coins. For me at the time even the Kiss army fee of $7.50 was steep so there was no way I was going to have enough to buy these coins which may have been $25 - I think there were a couple of levels of coins - maybe silver and gold. I'll check my mag and see if I still have the advert.

I'm certain the gold coins were via mail order through the KISS Army in Australia. The magazine Aussieausborn speaks of I remember had the order form inside. The cover was a yellow background with a kind of purplish KISS logo and the group shot [with Eric] on the cover with the band standing in front of his drum riser...great magazine by the way...I'm pretty sure most other music mags at the time ran ads where you could purchase the coins...correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure also newspapers had small adverts for the coins in the lead up to the Australian tour...including 'The Sun'...

That magazine I speak of was originally sold for a dollar or two maybe in 1980...in the early 1990's a shop in Melbourne had boxes of this magazine in MINT condition for $5 each...the owner had no idea of the value...I bought a half dozen of them , kept one for my collection and the rest I traded or sold...the ones I sold went for like $40-50...

I bought my coin at the Sydney show in 1980...and is the mag you are talking about JUKE? I was given a copy the other day by a freind it was dated 31 October 1980 and had all different adds for KISS merch inside,it brought back a few memories...POM

The coins were minted for the 1980 Australian tour.

They were advertised in this magazine,



There was a gold coin and a silver coin.




Here's the ad,

thats awesome. damn that brings back some cool memories. This was around the time i discovered kiss. Great time to be an aussie kiss fan thats for sure

I do remember them, I didnt have the cash to but the magazine at the time

I am pretty sure there are more than 3 versions out there, I have seen at least 4 (which Includes different thicknesses)

These coins were "bootlegged" around the mid to late 90's. This could account for the different thicknesses of some of the coins. I do remember from back in the day that there was definitely two different Eric makeup versions.