Custom Coin Holders And Numismatic Crafts

Some of my greatest pleasure in coin collecting comes in picking through bins of material which dealers have not found it worthwhile to price individually. Sometimes, when doing this, one finds a particularly nifty piece, or gradually puts together a group of pieces which deserve a display, and I have been working on creating such things using a laser cutter and off-cuts of plastic material from a local supplier.

Here, for instance, is a first cut at a display of numerous coins of the size, weight, and composition of the British cupronickel shilling. This one has the central plate cut from dark translucent sheet, giving a smoked-glass effect. I bound the central plate and the two cover plates together with gold metallic washi tape. The overall appearance is good, but opening it up to insert new coins and then re-sealing it is a pain, and the adhesive tends to spread.



I am trying new approaches now. I tried magnets in the cover plates with partial success, but Chicago screws in the Capital Plastics style might be my best bet.

Almost twenty years ago, I had a run of tokens or small medals made for promoting space activities. (You can see the die in my profile picture.) One way I came up with to package these, for selling or giving away, was to laser-cut pieces of the matte-board used in picture-framing, cutting a hole which the medalet could then be press-fitted into. The laser was ideal for this because of its precision. I found that it worked especially well to print a message on a self-adhesive label, and apply this to the back of the matte-board. I also used a rubber stamp to impress a message on the colored front side of the matte-board.



More recently, I have elaborated on the coin-card, using an atomic-energy-themed postage stamp alongside an atomic-energy-themed coin, and then packaging the whole thing in a printed folder.




Sometimes, I am creating something that has no obvious numismatic aspect to it at all, but it winds up being a coin display just because that is who I am. So, for instance, I got exasperated with hyperactive buffet attendants clearing away my place before I was ready to leave, just because I got up to grab some condiments or a beverage. I decided to create an object which would scream "someone is coming back". Here is my first cut :



I decided that having coins in the base, where both sides could only be seen by picking it up and looking at the underside, was unnecessary. Instead, I made a base out of mirror material. Yes, you can cut a mirror with a laser, as long as you do it from the back.




All seven plastic parts snap and hold together by friction and pressure. It took some trial and error, and sub-millimeter adjustments, to get them to hold well and not crack. Since there was now no need to look at the underside, I decided to attach a circle cut from a sheet of magnetic rubber that I bought when American Science & Surplus was closing down. I thought this would at least add some traction to help keep the thing from sliding off the table, and more adhesion if the table happened to be of steel. Considering how thin and flimsy this was, I was astonished to find that it held (barely! but it counts) the whole assemblage on the refrigerator door.




I plan to add more pictures here as I do more things like this, but if you have made your own custom displays or coin crafts, I would love to know about it!