Allied Medal Display review and GIVEAWAY!

3 miles on the schedule today but took another rest day.  Still feeling the hurt from Saturdays Calf pull.

--------------

I recently contacted Joel over at Allied Medal Display to see if they had an interest in me doing a review of their medal display product.  I was happy to see that he was interested in having me do a review.  I have heard many good things about Allied Medal Display but really wanted to form my own opinion and the best way to do that is to get one of their products.

Now, it would have been very easy for Joel to say, pick what you want on the website and they will send it out to me but he went much, much further.  He said pick out anything you want or they will custom make something for me.  In reviewing their website, they have numerous medal holders to pick from.  Of course, they have the traditional "Runner", "Marathon" and "26.2" but they also have City and Country landscapes, Triathlon holders, 50 states holder - to actually hold ALL your medals, to all kinds of other sports to hang medals.  They have a HUGE variety with just their standard medal deisplays.

Joel offered to custom make one for me so I took him up on that.  I believe that this is where they excel above and beyond other medal display companies.  They can pretty much make whatever you want so, of course, what else would I want besides a medal hanger that says "Detroit Runner" on it?  The thing that really made me feel special is that he took the time to look at my blog first and suggested that they use the same font that my title "Detroit Runner" has on my blog.  How's that for incredible customer service?  I looked up the font and let him know what it was.  It was called "Covered by your Grace" font.  Yeah, real common huh?  Anyway, he found what he needed and made the medal on their computer.

After the medal display was drawn out on the computer, he e-mailed me a picture of the first draft.  He didn't quite like it and asked me what I thought and suggested some changes.  Here's a picture here of the initial display:

He didn't like it because the R's were sticking out way too far and making it look like they were not part of the words.  I agreed that it looked kind of funny.  He suggested that we either go a different way or that he could try and adjust the R's manually to get them to look good.  I left it up to him to work his magic and he came back with the R's changed so it looked great.  Here's what it looked like with the changes.  A great improvement!

Much better he thought and so did I!  My point to showing you this entire process is that this is a company that really wants to make sure that what they do looks good and that their client is happy with the final result.  Sure he could have just made the first one and sent it to me but it was not exactly right and he wanted it to be perfect.  With the power of computers and e-mail today, I knew exactly what I was going to get before they made the actual medal holder so there would be 100% satisfaction.

The entire process took less than two weeks from the time I initially contacted them until the time that I received the medal.  Here's a picture my wife took of me holding the medal display itself when it came in:

As you can see, the display looks just like his e-mail he sent me.  Here's a couple close ups too.

The quality of the medal and the precision of the medal display cut is fantastic.  I will say that you do need to be very careful handling the medal display because it's very sharp on the edges.

So now onto the process to hang this baby in my home office.  I want to say first off that I am not even close to being a handy person and the hanger took me a whole 10 minutes to hang on the wall.  The hanger did come with instructions.  I pulled this from their website but these are the exact instructions I received with the medal hanger.

As you can see, it's very simple to hang, drill a few holes where needed, add drywall anchors and hang your medal display.  While it's not really necessary to use the anchors, it does make it more sturdy on the wall.  The display also comes with spacers that go behind the medal hanger.  This is necessary in order to lift the display off the wall a little so that you can get the ribbon behind the holder to hang the medal.

Here's a few pictures once on the wall.  Sorry, I'm not a great photographer:

And here's the final product:

Medals not touching each other - 8

Medals pushed a little closer together - 13

As you can see from the above pictures, you can really put as many medals as you can fit on there(12 to 18 work well).  Really you could probably put more on there if you overlapped them even more.  I actually like it really full.  It makes it look fantastic.

So there you have it, Allied Medal Display's custom medal.  I would highly recommend working with them whether it's to purchase one of their many standard medal displays or you are looking for a custom medal display.  Either way, you will get a high quality product at a very reasonable price.  Joel was really easy to work with and when I'm ready for my next medal display, I'll be sure to order from them.  You can check Allied Medal Displays out yourself here:

For their Facebook page, click HERE.

For their Website, click HERE.

Allied Medal Display has also offered to give away one of their medal displays to one of my lucky readers.  You will be able to choose one of their standard medal displays on their website or do a custom medal display with them.  Very generous in my opinion!  Here's the rules for a chance to win:

1) Be a follower of the Detroit Runner blog(1 entry)
2) "Like" Allied Medal Display on Facebook AND let them know that Detroit Runner Sent you on their wall.(1 entry)
3) Go to the Allied Medal Display website and tell me what medal you like(1 entry)

So there you have it, three chances to win.  This will be a fine addition to any room in your house or in your office to proudly display your race medals.  Good luck!  A winner will be picked at random on Tuesday, January 24th.

* Please note that I received a complementary Allied Medal Display in exchange for this review.  All opinions are my own and I was not required to give a particular opinion, other than my own, on this review.

Have a great day and....Keep Running!!!!