Did you spot it? A Las Vegas-based company is in the Oval Office.
A set of custom 24 karat gold-plated Donald Trump coasters now have a home in the Oval Office. They were made by Las Vegas’s Gorilla Pro Customs.
Founder and owner Johneric Stensrud said he was approached by Bradford Cohen, one of Trump’s lawyers, on June 1 to make “something nice” for Trump’s June 14 birthday. On a tight deadline, Stensrud and his gold-plating team in Iowa worked 4o hours straight to complete the coaster set, but just in case, he made two.
“The coasters actually say 45th and 47th which was presumptive,” said Stensrud. “Thank God he got elected, or the coasters wouldn’t be as cool.”
Valued at $15,000, from a team of 60 to 70 people, they are made from solid naval brass, plated in copper, nickel and three layers of 24K gold, then clear-coated. Each coaster weighs in at around two pounds with the presidential seal adorned on the front. The base that the coasters sit on is 8 pounds and reads “Donald J. Trump, 45th-47th U.S. President.”
The coasters were overnighted to Las Vegas, then to Cohen’s office with the maximum insurance possible, but from there Stensrud said he heard very little. That is until the coasters started appearing in the Oval Office during press conferences, including during a much-photographed recent meeting between Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The White House didn’t respond to requests for comment on the coasters.
“I was like ‘Holy crap, small town boy makes good,’” said Stensrud, originally from Stillwater, Oklahoma, on seeing images of the coasters on a coffee table in the Oval Office. “I’ve seen tons of it on the news, but to see it, you can’t move.”
There is still more to come with the coasters, hopefully within the next few days, as Stensrud will be visiting Trump to present him with another set of coasters, which Trump will be paying for himself. The coasters will be in a custom hard case from Nanuk with the seal and Trump’s signature on the top.
“So I had those guys (Nanuk) who are a massive company, make a custom case just to fit four coasters, and then a 45th, 47th and Trump plaque inside,” said Stensrud. “I want to thank them for going way above and beyond. Something like that can take six months. They did it in a week.”
While the coasters are his first entry into the Oval Office, Stensrud is used to having high-profile clients.
Founding of Gorilla Pro Customs
At 8615 W. Flamingo Road, the storefront for Gorilla Pro Customs may be unassuming. It was a former Port of Subs location, attached to a gas station, convenience store and vehicle registration company, all owned by Stensrud and his wife. But, behind the counter is multimillions.
Stensrud, 55, is a jack-of-all-trades American businessman. He moved to Las Vegas around 35 years ago and started opening businesses and selling them, eventually making enough money to retire in his late 20s.
From there, he went in and out of retirement, then got into motor vehicle registration services and bought his current location 14 years ago. When Stensrud wanted a nice business card, he turned to his now main machinists, father and son Michael and Brandon Schweiger, who registered cars with him, to make a holder.
“I wasn’t a designer. I am now, but at the time, I was just doing rudimentary drawings on paper and saying, ‘Can you make something like this?’ After about 15 shots, we got a perfect one,” said Stensrud. “I had it on my desk. Client comes in the very next day. He said, ‘That’s a beautiful card holder.’”
The client ordered 15 more and from there his vehicle registration customers ordered “hundreds and hundreds of business card holders.”
But, business car holders is not what Gorilla Pro Customs is known for now — today it is “The Brick” — a luxury money holder with bolt hole closures, made from heavy duty materials, to keep cash, coins and any other valuables secure while also being stylish.
The idea for The Brick came after one of his customers, Stensrud described as a “a real muscular version of Joe Pesci,” told him a story of how his bank “screwed him out” of $40 million in the 1970s. Ever since then, he kept his money in bags inside of his walls, until rats ate it all.
He then offered to craft a solution for him that would keep his money safe from pests and fire.
“They made several prototypes. I put them in my fireplace to see what would happen. So we ended up making a fantastic brick that fit in his wall perfectly,” Stensrud said.
He made the customer around 50 different bricks and made him a YouTube video in 2019 explaining how to open the box. For months it only had two views, himself and the customer, until one day it went viral, gaining 50,000 views. Now, the video has over 850,000 views.
With no website at the time, Stensrud sold custom money boxes to people for four years just through his YouTube comments.
Now, Stensrud has a website where he sells pre-made bricks, but most of his customers flock to him for custom-made items. Stensrud said he has made Bricks and other custom items for Johnny Depp, Michael Jordan and, now, government officials.
Aside from his custom items, he is also known for his prop cash, which has landed in the hands of retired NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal. O’Neal reached out to Stensrud after he lost a $3 million bet to another legend Charles Barkley.
“He’s going to pay him on TV in prop cash, and then work it out behind the scenes, because you don’t want to take 3 million bucks to ESPN studio,” said Stensrud. “So he says, ‘I look at your prop cash online, and it’s the best stuff I’ve ever seen.’”
Currently, Stensrud has three different locations in Las Vegas for Gorilla Pro Customs’ operations. The storefront off West Flamingo Road where he does some minor polishing and assembly; a building across the street for painting, polishing, sandblasting and designing; and another shop behind the Palms where they receive the raw materials and make it into a “rudimentary version.” There’s also a machine shop in California, where high volume items are made.
Whenever Stensrud has to outsource labor, he makes sure it stays in America, like his 22-year-old gold plating aficionado in Iowa, Colin Cappetto. Stensrud himself has a tattoo on his wrist that says “Made in America.”
“It’s all done in America. The brass is American and the aluminum we use is American. Everything we use is American,” said Stensrud.
Contact Emerson Drewes at edrewes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @EmersonDrewes on X.
