I had some conversations with a small designer and manufacturer that was interested. I set up for them to contact Purism (or vice versa). I have not heard from them since (it’s been a few weeks now). This is too bad. I think they ran out of faith.
They had a plan to manufacture a mold (the most expensive thing, five figures easily) relatively cheap but still did not believe that the numbers were there (which I disagree but have no proof of). They even had an idea to source recycled plastics, possibly with wood fiber mix and could have made a few variants. But, I feel, they did not believe there would be enough customers. The last thing I did, was to send an email about the possibility of a Kickstarter (either by them - or by more experienced Purism) to see if the pre-orders would be there, but it’s been silence. It could be that they thought this was after all some scam and not a real opportunity.
Quick calculations: for minimum of 30000 coins (they need at least some profit for incentive - and some manufacturers are more expensive), they would need to sell at least 1200 cases at average of 25 coins (not including Purism possibly supporting this). Individual customer also would have to pay for shipping and all that on top of it. So, not a cheap thing, there is risk involved.