But wait, isn’t defacing coins illegal?

The short answer is “no” for the art associated with Luke’s Coin Art.

As quoted from the U.S. Department of the Treasury: Section 331 of Title 18 of the United States Code provides criminal penalties “for anyone who fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates, impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales, or lightens any of the coins coined at the mints of the United States.'“ This Statute means that you may be violating the law if you change the appearance of the coin and fraudulently represent it to be other than the altered coin that it is. As a matter of policy, the U.S. Mint does not promote coloring, plating or altering U.S. coinage: however, there are no sanctions against such activity absent fraudulent intent.

In layman’s terms, if one alters a coin and then fraudulently represents it as an unaltered coin, that action is illegal. For example, if one has a 1 oz. gold coin, and they shave off 10 grams, but sell it as a 1 oz. coin, they are fraudulently representing the coin to be something that it is not. Luke’s Coin Art alters coins into rings, etc., and represents them as such, “Coin Rings”, which is legal per statute.

I don’t know what each coin looks like, so how can I choose Heads or tails out?

For moist of the pieces Luke creates, one has a choice of coins. The typical coins used are shown below. Please note that the images below are stock pictures of each coin’s design, and that actual coins vary slightly in appearance based on age, year of production, and prior circulation.