hmm. there are
physical bitcoins out there, I don't know if there are any plastic ones, but it is practically a simple object with bitcoin logo on it which also actually contains bitcoin with the public key and private key and everything.
is your friend sure that it was not just an ugly collectible?
https://www.coindesk.com/10-physical-bitcoins-good-bad-ugly/-snip-
oh.. Is that so? But how do you know that the coins are valid? And where do you get these physical coins from?
And I'm not sure if it was the kind of coin you are talking about... It's the first time I have heard of such a thing.
I haven't really paid much attention to physical coins and there are different types of them each doing something different. for example there was one guy who produced physical coins like a capsule with a shining red thing in the middle, you had to create a private key yourself, then encrypt it and send him the encrypted private key so he could etch it at the bottom of the capsule and then seal it for shipping.
Casascius is another type of it:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Casascius_physical_bitcoinsyou can also find out more about physical coins which are basically collectibles in their respective board on bitcointalk:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=217.0