Franklin Mint "Business Card" Coin Origin

The Franklin Mint (FM) was a private mint (in Pennsylvania) that was launched in 1964 and reached its peak in terms of popularity with coin/medal collectors during the mid- to late 1970s. Over this time, it struck a large number of collectible medals, tokens, ingots and other somewhat related collectibles (e.g., commemorative pewter plates), as well as coins for foreign governments. The FM struck collector coins / proof sets for Belize, the Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Panama, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Trinidad and Tobago (among others).

In 1973, the FM launched its own Museum of Medallic Art to display it various collectibles. I remember visiting the museum as a kid and enjoying the experience.

I believe the FM is still in business, but it is no longer an actual mint. The FM has changed hands over the years and is now basically a reseller of a variety of products (including some coins/medals) that it promotes as "collectibles."

Today, the collector base for most FM medals is fairly small and so most pieces do not sell for much over their melt value (if precious metal) or for more than a few dollars if struck in a base metal such as bronze.

Regarding your medal/business card...As you have probably surmised, it was handed out by members of the FM sales team to potential customers/accounts as a sample of the FM's work. Though an interesting souvenir of the FM during its prime, its value on the secondary market is fairly limited.

Hope that helps!

Oh, private minting for governments has been common for a long time. The most famous example might be the Boulton & Watt copper coinage of 1797 for Great Britain, but even before then, small change tokens were sometimes produced under "patent" by concessionaires, rather than by The Royal Mint. Be it noted, Franklin usually produced the circulation as well as the collector strikes for the coinages they executed.

Many small countries still farm out their coinage, either to a private contractor or to a national mint. The Japanese mint, for example, recently announced its first order for overseas coinage since the end of the Second World War : half a billion two-taka coins for Bangladesh. And that's not counting all the "collector" garbage companies like Pobjoy spit out.