So, people are rightly upset about a certain coin on the Voltron Store. So, let's talk about it. What do I know about this coin? Not much, but seemingly more than people who discovered it on the Voltron Store. Where did this coin come from? @RowanRowden @ElfGrove

Well, back in April an admin in a private Facebook Collector's group started the process of ordering this coin. He made it available to group members for $15, with $2 from every sale, supposedly going to Unicef. I cannot confirm that he donated any money to Unicef.

That's what he said, and there are reasons I am inclined to believe him. He mentioned that if there was enough interest, he might do other coins in the series, seemingly with the same donation plan in mind. All to "honor" front line workers.

That's how we got the other coins available on the Voltron Store that people haven't really commented on yet, which I kind of find more problematic. Because the series was supposed to "honor" front line workers, but it only seems to honor the NYPD? I was hoping that WEP hadn't

also picked up those coins, given the current climate, but nope, they totally did. Also the fact that this fan decided to make coins honoring the Police in 2020, might give some slight inclination to his political leanings.

The art of Lance on the Red Lion coin is an especially sensitive touch in 2020. Now, my assumption has been that these are unlicensed merch, and given how they were initially sold, that seems likely. But there is also this coin.

I honestly don't remember if this admin from this facebook group had any hand in organizing VoltCon, he might have, I'm really unsure. That may have been an official bit of swag for VoltCon, or he may have just produced something with that labeling on his own, I'm unsure.

But that last coin is kind of the origin of this whole situation. So, about a year ago now, this admin produced a key coin like that last one, but not branded for VoltCon. Except he didn't design it, another member of the group did, or so we were told. The fan that initially

designed the key coin may never have existed, I don't know. Wait, why did the admin produce the key coins if another fan designed them. Well, that other fan was going to produce them as well, and had started taking orders for the key coins from group members. But before he could

place the order, he died, I forget how exactly. I think it was a car crash, might have been a freak medical thing. Granted, I have no way of verifying any of that, this fan that initially designed the coins may not have ever existed for all I know, might have been a sock puppet.

No idea. But I'm going to assume for now, that this fan died. The admin that then created these problematic Covid-tron coins took over the process of getting this initial key coin produced, since he knew the guy and people had already ordered them. And he said that the money from

the sales would go to the dead fan's family. Again, I have no way of verifying that the admin did that, or even that the dead fan ever existed. This is just what we were told as members of the group. I have no reason to think any of this was a lie, but I can't actually prove it.

This situation is why I'm inclined to believe he donated funds to Unicef, but again I can't prove that either. And it may come out that he never did, not necessarily because he never intended to, but because of complicated tax stuff related to taking funds and then donating them.

It's a thing in America that many streamers have mentioned in the past when they tried to set up charity streams without properly setting up the necessary bank accounts first. Though, it is possible he never intended to donate any money to Unicef as well, I simply don't have that

information. But maybe having these manufacturing contacts from creating the first coin, he decided to try and do something help out with Covid, and decided to make new coins and donate proceeds. People have mentioned the art being kind of bad, it seems pretty familiar to me.

The yellow lion looks like he used the art from the Tin Box release of the original series DVD release. https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/PJoAAOSwjixcx1Dd/s-l1600.jpg

Same with Green Lion https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51F9grJqG%2BL.jpg

Black lion seems to be fully original art. But Red and Blue lion seem to match the art from this product https://store.voltron.com/collections/voltron/products/lion-decal-set

Given that I'm unsure these products were licensed, this admin may have gotten himself in a fair bit of trouble using official art assets to create these coins. But WEP apparently showcased his coins during some kind of video event, it seems like from a post of his.

And this gets into another area we simply have no information on. We don't know how WEP obtained these coins. Given that he's posting about being thankful for WEP showcasing his coins, they seem to be on good terms, which may imply that WEP bought out his stock.

Or given the high likelyhood of these being unlicensed merch using art assets he didn't really own, there may have been something else going on. From appearances it seems like the admin was trying to do help when he initially made these coins, if in a tacky and problematic manner

I'm giving this admin the benefit of the doubt and assuming he did actually donate proceeds to Unicef, but that is absolutely an open question. I also don't know if these were licensed or unlicensed merch. If WEP bought out this fan's stock of coins, when WEP purchased the coins

the admin may have donated a portion of the funds from that sale to WEP to Unicef (if he ever donated funds to Unicef at all). But WEP has not mentioned in any of their listings for these coins money going to Unicef, so anyone buying these coins from the Voltron Store, most

likely isn't participating in giving funds to charity (if anyone in this whole process even was). And that's assuming that WEP bought out the guy's stock, which they may not have. That is everything I know about these coins. That's the tea. I have tried to be careful to separate

facts from speculation. I do not think these coins were a good idea. WEP should not have obtained them. The admin probably should not have made them, and definitely should not have made the NYPD ones, because those are in really poor taste. But they exist now, this is their story