Well, my Shire Post order arrived today, talk about fast shipping! I was pleasently surprised with everything The silver Leif Erikson Viking style penny reminds me of a King Cnut issue I've been looking for a long time... The workmanship is outstanding. :thumb: All I need now is to locate the proper Celtic design silver chain for the holly leaf and Mrs Bonedigger will be very happy. http://www.shirepost.com Thanks Tom for the fantastic service. Ben
Ben, What a coincidence.I picked up these two several years ago just for grins.Silver penny and bronze farthing.
Have to ask what Eddy the Eagle is doing on a Shire coin LOL have been considering getting a couple for my collection as well De Orc :thumb:
Eddy the Eagle? That must have just whiffed over my head... I don't understand. But the mention of Cnut is right on. We often use real-world coin designs as inspiration for fantasy pieces. There is a story behind the design of the Leif Eiricsson piece by the way.... a bit of a fantasy I'm afraid but it does explain how such a coin could have come to be. There are at least two design features of the coin that are entirely IN-appropriate if the traditional history book story is correct.
Eddy was/is a British Ski Jumper who excelled off the slopes if you know what I mean And again, those are some pretty coins you make Take Care Ben
Tom,I'd like to know the story and the two design elements if you have the time..thanks I didn't even realize that these coins were made by your company until Ben posted his. another thing...the bronze "farthing" is slightly larger in diameter than the penny,althought the actual design is the same size.Did you just use a wider collar? They both fit in a US cent holder but the bronze coin takes a bit of persuasion. Here is a Cnut,but unfortunately,not the pointed helmet variety....one day!
The Story behind Leif Eiricsson's coins. Actually... no collar is used on these coins... they are "broadstruck" as some might say, "splash strike" is another way of saying it. They are struck on open dies with a flat face. The edge is permitted to squish out at the edges. At the point in time when these coins were made, I had not yet learned to use collars, but even if I had, collaring would be inappropriate for the style and period. As to the story question... Okay... you asked! (didn't want to force this on you... heh, heh) Okay... so... to start with, we've all read the history books about how Leif Eiricsson, son of Eiric the Red of Greenland, made an attempt about 1000AD to settle in Vinland, somewhere on the East coast of North America, most likely in Newfoundland. The colony was short lived however, they were plagued by poor relations with the Skraelings (Native Americans) and had some internal troubles as well. Eventually they gave up on the colony and sailed back to Iceland. The story also tells that in order to obtain permission to attempt the colony, Leif sailed to Trondheim in Norway to have an audience with King Olav Trygvasson. When he arrived he found that Olav had recently converted to Christianity, and with the zealousness of all converts he decreed that Leif must convert also... on pain of death (a bit pushy, but, you know, the Vikings were like that). Leif was given fourteen days to think about it. History tells us that Leif did indeed convert... on the fourteenth day... and sailed off to meet his fate in the New World... But OUR story (heh, heh, heh... based on decipherment of a cryptic runestone, which I seem to have misplaced somewhere ... and a little wine-besotted imagination) is somewhat different! As it happened, Leif was not at ALL happy about having to give up his cherished Asatru religion. In fact, the Norse patron saint of warriors Thor had always treated Leif quite well and he couldn't countenance following some pantywaist messiah who wouldn't even defend his own honor. What kind of warrior is that? So Leif went along with the baptism just for show, but secretly kept his own counsels. Among other preparations, he had a small hoard of silver made up into a thousand coins by a local smith in the Korsvika district further up the fjord east of Trondheim where his ship was being prepared for the journey. In the design of the coins there are clues to the mind of Leif Eiricsson at the time. Item #1... Viking coins used symbolic 'text terminators' to end strings of letters. Christian kings used a smll cross and pagan kings used the 'mjolnir' or "Hammer of Thor". If you look closely at the text terminators used on this coin you will see that they are in fact hammers! Item #2... Coins issued for rulers of colonies show the person bearing an axe in service to the king, while if issued in the king's own name it would show the three-headed sceptre of rulership. Leif's coin shows the sceptre, not the axe. Therefore, in the concise language of coins, Leif is at one time asserting his old religion, while declaring rebellion against King Olav and setting up his own kingdom! The idea was that his new kingdom would eventually grow to need a medium of exchange, so he wanted to have some on hand to get things started. He dreamed of eventually returning to Norway as a conqueror! But... as we know... things did not come out as planned. Once the decision to abandon the colony was made, Leif had to decide what to do with the coins. He could NOT return with them to Iceland or Norway for they would be damning evidence against him of his rebellious intent. In the decrepit state of the colony he also lacked the technology even to smelt them back into bars. Hoping against hope that he might yet return one day to re-establish his Kingdom of Vinland he buried them under a large rock near the village. But he never did return and the location of the hoard was lost to the mists of time. Fast forward now to the 1920s and one of many archaeological expeditions excavating ancient stone houses on Newfoundland. One digger was a college student doing some summer field study. While everyone else was having lunch, this young man was poking under a large strangely shaped rock and uncovered a tremendous hoard of silver coins!! They each weighed about 2.4 grammes and were made of 90% silver, about 19mm in diameter. Being young and insecure he was instantly overcome by the dragon sickness and quickly decided to tell no one but to keep the entire hoard for himself. With some difficulty he managed to conceal the find and transport the entire lot home with him. But then he became overcome with guilt, could not admit his wrongs, could not bear to sell a single coin, and ended up locking the entire hoard of away in a safe deposit box... telling no-one about it... seemingly forever. Fast forward again to the year 2000. I receive a phone call from a retired gentleman in Bella Vista Arkansas, who says that he had received the contents of his long-lost uncle's safe deposit box, a long rambling hand-written account of the find, and with it a rotting leather bag filled with a thousand small silver coins bearing the name of Leif Eiricsson. Since he had heard that I knew something about coins... could I help him decide what to do with them? ... "Of course!" says I! So rather than dribble them into the market at a high price... we decided to offer them at a quite reasonable rate so more people could obtain a piece of history. So... that's what fantasy coinmaking is all about... making coins that MIGHT have existed if history had just gone a little different... or maybe if we only knew the REAL story! Doing some in copper (bronze) was something of an afterthought in order to be able to offer some at a lesser price. I haven't quite figured out where they fit in the story. have fun! (I am!)
I am due ot buy a few of these various Shire Post coins. There are some great designs listed on the site. And if you are into woodworking, take a look at the drawer pulls/knobs. I have never made any furniture, but I will plan to just so I can use some of those. They are real works of art.
Thanks Tom. I actuallly guessed that the Thor hammers were part of the story but didn't know the details.Thanks for the history.
Shire Post I have also bought a couple of the Shire Post pieces. They are silver and I like them very much. The Hay penny is also a neat little piece.
Thanks to all and especially JBK! It is the greatest compliment of all to hear that you may put your creativity to work inspired by my knobs!! Speaking of knobs... I was working on a new one today and had a scary accident. Nobody hurt! I strike these knobs on massive 36 gram copper planchets using a hydraulic press set at 150 tons. I had just made a new die (with a sitting pig on it) and a new back die (to replace the last one that broke) and had got to about the sixth strike when there was a BANG like a gunshot... the sound of breaking glass... and the light went out. Turns out the steel collar (1/2" thick x 3" diameter with a 1.25" hole) exploded from the force and went flying! Fortunately this is a relatively modern press (post OSHA). You have to push two buttons simultaneously (to keep hands out) and hold them down until a 1/2" thick armor shield window comes down before the press will actuate. The collar broke into four pieces. Two stayed in the die area. One came straight towards me and I was saved only by the armor shield. There is a deep gash on the inside of the shield. The other one went out the back of the press and smashed the light bulb where I had removed the other shield in order to put a bright light there. Had a bit of an adrenaline rush there... I guess I'll take a break 'til I get a new collar made... and replace the back armor shield. I'll have to figure out another way to get light in there. Mostly... looking at the dent in the armor... I'm glad I'm still here! I've heard people (including myself) say bad things about OSHA rules... but they have sure cut down on workplace accidents! After this one I will never complain again! Cool looking pig though...
Photos of burst collar... Here's a pic of one of the nine decent examples of the new pig knob design that were struck before the collar burst... along with a photo of the burst collar and the pig that broke it. Note that the one from the broken collar shows a doubled rim where they metal flowed out beyond the rim after the burst! On the good example, the recessed ring in the center of the back is the "seat" for soldering the knob standoff in place. After the copper standoff is soldered on the entire thing is tumbled and antiqued and baked to give is a deep brown toning, then hand-rubbed to bring up the bright copper color on the highlights. The collar fragment that tried to get me was the one at the bottom. The triangular one at top is the one that exited the press to break the light.
Wow! Seems like it takes an extreme amount of pressure to break a collar. So, how much does it take to break one? Also, does it create a lot of heat?
How much pressure to burst a collar? Well... it SHOULDN'T have burst. The hydraulic up-acting coining presses like this one have the striking pressure adjustable by means of a dial. I was running the press at 150 tons. I have struck coins in collars up to 250 tons on this same press before without breaking one. On close examination of the fractures and on consulting the handbook TOOL STEEL TROUBLESHOOTING I believe that in this case I the problem was in the heat-treatment... an inadequate tempering of the steel after hardening left it too hard and brittle for the collar. I had heat-treated the collar along with a number of dies at the same time. While dies need to be as hard as possible... it's more important for a collar to be tough. Therefore I should have tempered the collar separately from the dies and at a higher temperature. I'm just glad I'm still around to have learned this lesson. No heat though... the coins get hot from the metal flow when striking... but there was no heat generated in the fracture of the steel... all the energy went into propagating the crack(s).
