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 Replies: 13 / Views: 2,721 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
807 Posts |
As part of my space advocacy efforts, I commissioned the production of a thousand medalets (struck on nickel-plated brass blanks, the sort used for amusement tokens) back in 2008.  Here you can see a few of the pieces, struck for me by Moffat & Co (now defunct) of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, along with the die, which was cut for them by, as I was told, Russel Larson of someplace in South Dakota, in place of their regular engraver, who was on holiday. It got weird, because the engraver's power was knocked out by a tornado, & the mint had electrical company problems, so it took quite several days longer to get them done than anticipated. As a result, I wound up paying to have them overnighted to me, at the World Science Fiction Convention (held that year in Denver, Colorado), which added a good 20% to the overall cost. I have a plan (search for "Luna City Mint" to learn more) to acquire my own coin press, & do more creations for myself, as well as for others on a contract basis. But, that to one side notwithstanding, I'd love to hear from anyone who has commissioned or actually struck their own creations. What were they like, why did you do it, & did anything interesting happen? |
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
127 Posts |
They are so cool, as is the idea.
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Moderator
 Australia
16804 Posts |
I'm afraid the only "mint your own medal" I have produced is one of these.  There's a member of one of my local coin clubs whose main interest in the hobby is making his own medal dies and striking medals for people. I've never commissioned him to strike one for me personally, but other members of my coin club have. We have, however, commissioned him on numerous occasions to strike medals on behalf of the club. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Valued Member
United States
403 Posts |
Never thought of anything like that, could I have a ballpark figure on the price.
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
807 Posts |
Sap : Which club is that? I'm planning to do something similar for Numismatics International, if things work out as I hope. woodcr : that I paid, or that I would charge? I paid about $300 for the die (reverse was a "stock" pattern they had on hand), plus 20 cents apiece for the pieces, plus $100 shipping, so $600/1000 = 60 cents each. What I want to do is to reduce the cost of the dies, & have no minimum order. So, the individual pieces might be more expensive, but the total batch cost would be less. For example, if I could do dies for $75 each at a complexity level of text & simple graphics, & had metal costs of 40 cents per piece, & a workmanship charge of 10 cents, then 200 pieces of custom design would be something like $1.25 each. Not bad all around. See here for a more thorough discussion, illustrated with Civil War Tokens (thanks to the University of Notre Dame). |
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Moderator
Australia
16804 Posts |
The Queensland Numismatic Society, and the Australian Numismatic Society. You can see one of the chap's medals on the QNS Homepage. The two medals shown in the "Items for sale" section were not his but made by a local medal company, AJ Parkes. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Pillar of the Community
United States
531 Posts |
Nice design Publis, I like it. I struck this piece on a screw press, in pewter, at the ANA Money Museum early in July as part of a tour with my Summer Seminar class.   |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1944 Posts |
i was on the inaugural cruise on royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas. they had a coin anvil and hammer. I purchased two blank coins - and struck the "hammer" to the top of their die - thus making two coin - and a memory - in the same process. both the cruise and striking the coin - were great. actually I believe you can see some MD on the coins devices.   |
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Valued Member
United States
324 Posts |
The pewter piece from the ANA looks like it was struck on a reeded blank which was not meant for that die set, that's why it looks like the metal spread a little too much. Making your own dies with simple designs is possible for $75 but getting your customer to settle for the simple design is a little harder. For blanks, pewter is the easiest metal to make your own from, but it doesn't hold up to handling very well. With a powerful enough press you can overstrike other coins. I've used Lincoln cents, Jeff nickels, English pennys, etc for host blanks. You just need to anneal and polish them first. Joe |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
807 Posts |
I have some hope â€" confidence, even â€" of being able to make dies of reasonable quality, suitable for my purposes anyway, at lower than prevailing prices. I'm exploring technical approaches including building a sort of specialized milling machine, a CNC analog to the Janvier machine, if you will. So, with the Kickstarter campaign to sink the first costs, reducing my carrying charges, & my membership at the Dallas Makerspace relieving me of the burden of keeping up a shop full of tools I don't use all the time, I think I have a decent stab at being able to produce decent pieces at decent prices. Of course, I could be entirely off my rocker, but that's a risk we all take! |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
807 Posts |
Well, my Kickstarter campaign didn't succeed, but I'm going to try again. I'm going to take the next couple of weeks to focus especially on die-making, since the other tooling is going to be dependent on the press I eventually wind up getting, but I have a good feel for a setup allowing maximum interchangeability of dies. Hopefully, people will see my efforts as more credible then.
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New Member
United States
46 Posts |
So, did you end up moving forward with your idea?
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Pillar of the Community
United States
807 Posts |
Sadly, I have not yet, although I continue to refine my plans. The correct combination of circumstances has not yet favored me, but when it does I mean to be ready. It's particularly annoying, because I have a coinage project I want to execute this year, which means I will have to send it out. Any suggestions as to where would be welcomed.   Edited by publius
01/28/2026 3:18 pm
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Moderator
United States
94586 Posts |
Nice design.  I had found a stie for making coins, but lost it, If I see it again, I'll post it up. |
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Replies: 13 / Views: 2,721 |
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Posted 07/16/2013 09:11 am
