There is something for everyone in this world. Example: For the people sitting in the cozy Venn overlap where coin-collecting dorks meet cops and their enthusiasts, there are police challenge coins. Have you heard of these?
Challenge coins are thought to have originated in military units, commemorating participation in a battle or campaign, a posting, or a unit. If someone challenged your military bona fides, you produced the coin, proving you were the real deal. Somewhere along the way, as with so much other military-to-paramilitary drift, civilian police officers got into challenge coins, NYPD cops among them.
The resulting numismatic culture is kind of wild, and an art history graduate student could wring a pretty good dissertation out of its close examination. The coins range from the prosaic to the yikes-worthy to the downright Knicksonian. For whatever it may say about the type of people who commission and trade NYPD challenge coins, multiple coins are dedicated to female officers made famous for sexy dancing. This excellent zine from Research and Destroy offers a good introduction to the entire genre.
Sometimes, NYPD challenge coins are bad. In 2020, Gothamist reported on a number of challenge coins which referred to the 67th Precinct, located in the heart of West Indian Brooklyn, as "Fort Jah," and featured a great deal of racist imagery, including a man in dreadlocks being "hunted" by officers, an eagle clawing at a dreadlocked skull, and a really unfortunate Ernest Hemingway quote. A few years earlier, the NYPD was in the Daily News defending a Gang Squad challenge coin that featured a Punisher skull, referencing the comic book character best known for his pursuit of justice through extrajudicial killings.
How is the NYPD challenge-coin community handling the fact that the department now answers to a Muslim mayor? A casual survey of challenge coins for sale suggests the answer is: about how you might expect.