I like creating things and had a chunk of copper, so I am trying my hand at tags. I've seen plenty of other copper tags, so I'd like it to be different. My twist is to add a world coin along with punched letters. My first tag was bigger than a dog tag and included a Mexican Peso - it went to Max for feedback.
My next tag I'm making is smaller so it can be carried. Here are a few pics of what I'm do
Salt treatment alone didn't do it - so I used the salt with a 9v battery and a q-tip to eat the metal. I only did a quick pass so it only roughed up the metal, but you may be able to get a power supply to really get an etch and pits.
I have only seen the coffee trick - the salt one I did at work to test locking systems for trailers to artificially speed up the weather testing. Let me see what I can do to show you what I did.
Did you see my comment on using ground coffee to rust and age. Wet the grounds and throw the knife in for two days. Hit it with a mild acid to clean it up a little. Or get a bag of water softning salt, fill a bucket with the salt and add warm water. Clean all oil off the knifes and then drop in, let stand for 24 hours and then pull and let air dry.
Gerber fix blade goes camping with me - the multi tool was a gift that I got 17 years ago, the frame is cracked but somehow it lives on. The grey / black knife is a cheap plastic scaled knife I got in HS. I EDC'ed this one for several years before I knew about better knives. Spyderco, Kershaw, and Boker are all purchases within the last year.