making coins

Is there any such automated machinery through which I can make my own coins as people make their own fake funny money through printers.

Please do not make duplicate posts in multiple forums.

 

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Check with the Chinese

 

If you are asking about machinery to produce fake copies of genuine coinage, you are asking for assistance in committing the federal felony of counterfeiting, and can't really expect any forum member to conspire with you, or aid and abet criminal conduct.

If you are asking about machinery to produce fantasy coins, click here.

 

Ive minted my own coins. Theres lots of minters out there.
Be prepared to shell out a pretty penny too.

 

just go to eaby and search for Trade Dollars, and ask the seller.
:rolling:

 

That approach will only work if you speak fluent Chinese.

 

Automated machinery???

There is no point to automation for the scale of fantasy coins that I think you're talking about. I'm often asked about where to get "one of those machines that does everything". People seem to think that there's a machine that you just feed metal into and coins come out. Not that simple!

The process must be divided into at least two parts... blank-making and striking. You simply cannot do it all at once. Each of those two processes can be automated... but that's really only worthwhile if you are needing quantities of thousands per day. Automation involves highly complex and expensive sub-systems that take days or weeks to build and set up for each run. A modern Schuler press with feed-table and blank-hopper can run at about 350 strikes per minute and costs about a half-million dollars. It's fun to dream about, but if you're a hobbyist wanting show tokens or something like that you probably only want 1000 strikes or so from each die-set... and there's no point in spending the week setting that Schuler up so you can run it for just three minutes! It makes much more sense to use slower manual presses which can strike something like 5 or 10 coins per minute and cost one or two thousand dollars. You can set that up in a couple hours, and in a few hours more you've got your thousand coins. Plus, it's much more fun to use the antique type presses and do things the old-timey way.

 

Thanks, Roy, I needed that!!!!!!!
:thumb:

 

Why bother. Just go out and get a job in a factory that makes washers. Lots cheaper and the machines and metals are there already. Now I just wonder how many federal agents are members of this forum. So lableblack6 if there is a knock on your door after posting this, don't answer it.

 

do you have links to places that sell these manual machines my chance? Or a name brand to search for that you recommend?

 

Finding a press...

If you look on eBay, use the search term "screw press", or "fly press". There are several up there at any one time. One of the dealers, Gold International Machinery of Rhode Island has a Garrigus screw press up there right now that looks quite similar to one mf mine. They're asking $1,499 for it. I would guess it is probably a 30 to 40 ton capacity... so it would do penny to nickel size stuff. If I didn't have several of the things here already I'd probably look at it more closely. The kind of questions I'd ask are: how many leads on the screw (three or more is good), and what sort of die-holders are provided at top and bottom. Cliff Davis at Gold's is pretty good at answering questions. cdavis@goldmachinery.com

Also search eBay on the word 'coining'. Gold's also has a much more sophisticated coining set-up available... for $18,950... for a pair of presses... one for blanking and the other for striking. The blanking press is a basic punch-press with coil-feed. The striking press is a 330 ton CMC hydraulic... which would certainly do up to silver dollar size or even larger. It would be an awsome set-up. It's not cheap, but not outrageous either.

If you google-search or otherwise locate the Gold International Machinery website you can search their inventory. They have lots and lots of ancillary equipment, such as blanking presses (punch presses), rimmers, rolling mills, furnaces, tumblers, lathes, and hobbing presses. One you might want to look at is stock #1820, a Zeh & Hahnemann #7 Percussion Screw Press. I have one of these that I got from them and I love it! You can see the one I have at my website 'workshop tour' page. It's about a 60 ton and will do up to quarter size coins pretty reliably. It is basically a motor-assisted screw press, so it's a whole lot easier on the back and arms than the manual type screw presses. You'll need three-phase power for these large machines. Converters are available if you don't have three-phase available from the power company.

Also in Gold's inventory are a number of Adams C-frame screw presses. These are fine for light work... such as counterstamping, collar-extracting, and blank-punching, but they are not powerful enough to strike a coin larger than a widow's mite.

A basic rule of presswork is that you never want to run your equipment routinely to capacity... that is... if you need 50 tons for a long-running project... you should not try to use a 50 ton press for the job. Once in a while is maybe okay, but if you push things to their limit consistently you WILL break something. Use the 100 ton press for the 50 ton job, and it will last forever.

 

thanks for the info. Although I dont have the money to throw around, wont urt to know exactly what I am looking for in case I can find a good deal.

 

I wouldn't worry too much that somebody asking on this forum about coining machines was interested in illegal activities. There is a lot involved in reaching a technical point at which that is even possible. However it can happen... I was once contacted by a person who expressed the wish to learn coinmaking. After some dozens of emails back and forth and the answering of many questions I finally decided that this person was trying to set up a counterfeiting operation and ceased contact. I based my conclusions on the following information, slowly gathered in the course of communications:

1. They claimed to have a constant market in an Asian country for up to 35,000 coins per day.
2. They were seeking to set up the minting operation in a tiny little rental storage unit with less than 400 square feet of floor space.
3. They would not reveal to me a mailing address or phone number, only an email.
4. They would not reveal to me the intended design of the coins
5. The person had an apple-pie American name, yet wrote with very odd grammar and frequent misspellings, indicating a non-native, probably Asian, speaker of English.
6. The precisely specified size, alloy, and weight of the intended coins matched closely to current circulating coins in a certain Asian country.
7. They mentioned certain unnamed partners or associates that had large sums of ready cash available for the purpose of purchasing machinery for this project.
8. They expressed a preference for purchasing machinery from individuals rather than professional dealers.

The only possible interpretation of the above is that they were seeking to counterfeit small midrange coins for a foreign country and ship them over with the purpose to slip them into circulation through a network of associates. There is no possible market for 35,000 coins per day in the collector or fantasy coin realm... only circulating coins could conceivably be in such demand. The secrecy and repeated mentions of cash were suspicious. The idea of setting up in a storage unit was simply ridiculous and could only reveal a paranoid desire to stay out of sight. There is no legitimate purpose which the combination of factors could possibly serve. I don't know if counterfeiting the coins of another country would be against US law other than the 1969 Hobby Act... but it is certainly highly unethical... and would certainly be against the laws of the other country.

As soon as I notified this person of my suspicions, they ceased communication altogether (rather than trying to explain themselves). Several possible scenarios of the intent of the operation are possible, none of which are good. Coinmaking is fun, but there is a certain line which should not be crossed. One should always behave in such a way that even if a federal agent were to closely examine the operation, they would find nothing legally objectionable. Fantasies are therefore wide open, whereas reproductions are fraught with pitfalls.

 

I just want to mint coin of my own design...nothing more, nothing less...

 

Why not design it and have Tom mint it? (If Tom does that for others.)
It would be far cheaper than buying all that equipment!

 

I looked into having my own coin minted, for the cost of a few thousand I could almost buy my own small mint set-up...then I can mint as many as I want and different designs...plus I want to mint coins...I have read a lot about it and would like to do it myself.

 

edited

Also... on eBay right now is a rather nice looking Hopkins screw press CHEAP!!! They are starting the bid at $150 and the last time I looked there were no bids and two days to go. You could scrap the thing for melt for more than that! It's worth at least $1000, a dealer would list it for $1500

 

Automated it's not, but every year when I go to the local Renaissance Faire there's a guy minting bronze and silver medals for faire goers. His equipment consists of a set of dies for each design and a coining press that works by cranking a heavy weight a few feet above the dies and a release mechanism to release the weight. Works reasonably well, but the output is only around a coin per minute.

 

Wth a manual screw press working on my own I have gotten up to 6 coins per minute. If you have a helper flinging the flywheel you should be able to go faster... maybe double that.

 

I have decided to mint a coin by simply hammering one. I figure I can create a die the same way I create images on a zinc plate when I am etching. Put acid resist (hard ground) on the metal I am using for a die, etch the design (going to be real simple like early Anglo-Saxon), then drop it in acid.

My problem right now is finding the metal for the dies. I have the metal I will be minting and I have a way to melt (heat) it. For the dies I need either bronze or steel at the right size for making my reverse and obverse dies. I figure I need circular bars around 6-7 inches and maybe 1" thickness.

I am not sure how the acid will work making a die. I know it does a good job on zinc plates, I figure if I let it etch longer it will make a deeper image...we will see.