Making Imitation Capital Plastic Holders Or Ideas?

Not sure what they use in the Capitol Holders, but I have thought about this myself.


I would use the same foam material they use in the air-tite containers. Not sure what that is though.

If you are feeling adventurous, take a look at this link and you should be able to identify just about any plastic with only a cup of water and a source of flame. Maybe you can figure out what material is what and go from there.

http://www.consultekusa.com/pdf/Tec...chart%20.pdf

I do know that you can get small sheet pieces to experiment at the major supply retailers online. McMaster Carr, MSC, Grainger, Uline, etc.

Try some hobby type stores for sheets of clear plastic. If your good you could cut of drill out the size of the coins on one sheet. Then take another sheet for the bottom and one for the top and drill holes in the corners and use screws or nuts and bolts to close. Naturally if you made the holes approximate, the coins will fit a bit loose but so what. You not going to be shaking the thing.
IF you good you could make several such sheets and using small hobby type hinges, you could make a book of them.
Or just use those 20 pocket plastic sheets for 2x2's only don't put 2x2's in them. Just put the coins in the pockets and tape shut.

Been there - done that - years ago (70s)



Made one for Canadian nickels awhile ago. I used a typical wood cutting spade bit with as close a diameter as I could get. If I did it with a spade bit again, I would likely modify the bit by grinding it to a closer size to the coin.

The Franklin holder has 1 mm thick plexi sheet in the middle with holes drilled for the halves. The covers are 2.6 mm. Tap and die used with flat head screws to hold it together.

The Canadian nickel one is three sheets of 3 mil.

I want to make more. But I am thinking the 1 mm is best for middle and the 3mm for both sides.

I also am thinking of getting the cylindrical diamond hole-making "drill bits" off of ebay as they make them in 1mm increments and these would likely fit the coins well. Remember the plastic will expand as being drilled from the heat, and will slightly contract afterwards.

Having access to a laser cutter would be fantastic!

My eventual goal is to make "album pages" so I can have Dansco-like albums that won't tarnish the coins over time.

Finished it!

Amazing!

This looks great. I am constantly amazed at how other people can come up with such great soultions to their problems.

As I was reading through this thread I was wondering if a 3-D printer would work or am I up in the night?

This is a simply stunning display. Nice job! Would you mind sharing your techniques such as plastic thicknesses, is the layer holding the coin sandwiched between sheets of similar thickeness? Did you tap the screw holes or use nuts on the back, and are your labels from a label maker and positioned onto the plastic?

@BuckeyeCoinGuy Thanks for the tip on the backwards drilling. The problem is trying to find a perfect sized drill bit for something as large as a half dollar. I have to use an adjustable bit and will try to reverse it, but the cutting edges (two of them) appear to be just small knife blades instead of slanted, sharpened edges.

The sandwich includes the outer 2 acrylic sheets, the center foam sheet, and "posters" for the obverse and reverse. A side view is shown below.

The acrylic sheets are 18" x 24". Since they are relatively large, I wanted to make sure the assembly didn't bow, so I chose the back sheet to be 0.25" thick. The front sheet is 0.09" thick.

The foam is volara, which is the same material that is used for foam rings in capsules. Rolls of this foam can be purchased in different colors. This is 1/8" thick white.

The posters were printed out on a campus plotter and show the date, variety, and die pairing that I could identify. The posters also show black and whites of the coins I don't plan on adding to this collection lol.

The best way to drill the holes for me was to progress up in drill bit size from 1/16" to the tapped hole size, and then for the top, the through hole size. I used a drill press and lubricated the bit often with soapy water. I taped the plastic itself with masking tape on both sizes prior to drilling to reduce surface tractions. The back sheet was then tapped for 8-32 screws.

I used an x-acto blade compass cutter to cut out the circles on both sheets of paper and through the foam. The coins fit in the foam circles snugly.

All and all, it took a long time to make but was an enjoyable and rewarding process.