Anyone know of any good books or sites where it talks just about dies and how they were made as time went on? I am pretty well read up on ancient and medieval dies (although I could know more too) but I'd like to learn about dies of all era's. stainless
"Charles Larsen" wrote a good one about dies and counterfitting, seems he got his info from Mark Hoffman. I know guys who have seen Hoffman's work, it was good enough to fool them. -Now , well burned, they teach counterfit detection!
Don't know of any books on the subject, but by reading enough you can find out that in the beginning they were carved entirely by hand, one by one. Then they progressed to using individual punches, then gang punches, then hubs as we use today. That's it in a nutshell.
The austrian mint had a video clip up for a while, it may still be there, of the press minting Maria Theresas. These are a broadstruch coin, you can see the expansion and rebound. I have shown it to dozens of students. BIG wow factor.
