Or you have to build up your collection by returning year after year? I seem to recall a race that did this - a slightly different mug or something each year, that built into a decent set over time.
And just remembered another race that gave horse shoes as medals, graded for finish time/position.
Although not a post race momento as such the ultra I did the other week included a soft scrunch cup, partly for you to use during the race to save on disposable plastic cups, and so you could use it at other races.
Also had slate coasters from one of the Lakes classic fell races.
Nice 70.3 had a towel which is quite nice.
Jeff
Haha, why is that not surprising! 
Can you imagine living at Chez Poet; the male equivalent of Monica Geller 
This is good question GB,
My $0.02 worth
All Medals that I had left (bar the World Champ 1/2 one) got binned in a move. These days I either don’t collect or give to my daughter.
However here is a list of useful stuff:
The free t-shirts I generally wear at the start of a cold race which is useful and then gets thrown off and I assume goes to charity?
I do feel a bit of a bell when using it, but I use the IM rucksacks as quite frankly they are really useful (good size, dont break that easily)
I still use an IM towel I picked up at some point to wipe the sweat when on the turbo.
I have wetsuit in an Outlaw mesh bag somewhere (probably rotting by now)
I have a buff from some race in my kit bag when required on an ultra.
And then stuff I have won
My wife runs in some socks I won once.
When I remember at the height of summer I use a running visor that I won somewhere.
And the 5k race I do each week I have won 3 bottles of wine for each win, best prize of the lot, though does not last as long as the others.
So having said all that, personally, I would prefer nothing for just finishing, but I get the something at the end for most people, so something useful and usable, i.e. a cup seems a good idea, perhaps a disposable one as that is a requirement for ultra’s these days? Though that may be costly to get a good quality one. Perhaps a running visor, they are popular over here and useful and a bit different perhaps in the UK?
Cheers all.
So basically it’s impossible as everyone is different, and there’s always gonna be someone whining! Haha. But I agree with most people here.
The medals we do now, in my opinion, are all pretty good. Decent quality and nice designs on the whole.
I’ll pass these back and see what my friend thinks. Towels seem to be popping up regularly, and that’s not something I’d considered.
Another one I saw online was a camping chair. Perfect for resting after an ultra, if they can be bought for cheap enough.
I think the problem with things like camping chairs GB, is that is they could be bought cheap enough, they won’t last and will end up in landfill. I imagine they’d take up quite a bit of room for the RD to transport/store as well?
Have to say, I’m surprised at the reluctance to use the IM stuff. Only in triathlon do you see such reverse snobbery. It seems like you have to do an IM race but hate yourself for doing it all that the same time? That sounds outright weird!
I use both of my IM Wales backpacks all the time. They are different sizes, one is great for day pack races and the other is big enough for a weekend away. They are good quality and I don’t care what that ‘says’ about me. To me it’s a bigger tragedy to bin something ‘just because’.
I can live without medals, the problem is that my ‘ho hum’ might be someone else’s ‘awesome achievement’. My next significant medals will be 100km, 100 mile (I wish haha) and anything from UTMB/ Blue Trail etc but others will have loads of them.
I use my Outlaw 2017 rucksack for swimming stuff. It’s a really good Blue Seventy one, so should last for years. The IM ones have gone up a bit in quality, but nowhere like this BS Outlaw one.
Buffs are cheap, and almost universally used by most multisport people I think, plus runners of all flavours.
It’s weird. The 2015 Im Wales one, I sent to a Welsh mate in Oz (because I dnf’d and he volunteered whilst on holiday) but the quality of that was absolute garbage.
The 2017 one looks very similar but the quality is night and day and the 2018 one is a holdall/backpack type that is made of a material like canvass.
I had a dry bag from the NSW Club Champs in 2001 that lasted way over 10yrs. It was brilliant for swim sessions.
I think the significant finishers shirts I have, i tend to baby a bit and not wear much but everything else, I use the crap out of until it wears out.
A few years back, Ironman had a penchant for technical fabric polo shirts in garish colours; bit like a darts shirt. The Austria 2013 one is turquoise & orange 
We’ve never given medals at the races we organise. T-shirts for all and bottles of wine as prizes. We get a handful of grumbles each year, usually from newbies doing their first Tri but most seem fine with it and we do specify in the race details what you’ll get.
We used to use cotton T-shirts but I do think they end up as dusters or thrown away. We always do tech T-shirts now so at least they can be used for training afterwards.
One of the difficulties is how many to order to make sure you don’t run out of sizes. We got 900 last year and had about 200 left. The way the pricing works it wasn’t much more expensive to get 900 rather than 500 as the price comes down so much with the quantity.
I’ve got a lot of DIY coming up, so I’m all for cotton t-shirts at the moment. 
People that want/expect this aren’t the kind of people you want to be attracting, running and competing/completing for it’s own sake should be enough.
It’s all about the #journey
True, but you can’t filter who does end up racing, and it’s got to pay the bills (not for me, but my friend’s company is only small).
The events are technically races, but there’s no prizes for winning, (other than a free spot at a other race) no ag rankings etc. But it caters for the quicker and ‘challenge’ end of the spectrum. Its very much the challenge runners that desire these takeaways.
I don’t think there’s an easy answer here.
I also got a cap at the IM in America last year that isn’t too bad.
Jeff
Voucher for a local tattoo studio?
Are you talking about the SWC stuff GB?
I am yeah, CSW is the company (trail events are a part of it - the rest is climbing/mountain based stuff).
Get em to spend less on medals and more on real Coke 
I really like their events, they have a great vibe about them. Ran in my Dartmoor in a Day shirt yesterday 