I have been experimenting with techniques that would enable me to make a good coin die. I posted a while ago with a few of my first attempts, rough but I think I might have found some solutions and am ready to try again. My first attempt was a Celtic type coin, this time it will be Crusader. The design will be like the picture below. I had to develop a 'crusader' font to make this coin, I am emulating a coin type of Bohemond III with the stylized knight (my favorite crusader coin type) although I studied at least 40 different crusader coins for lettering styles. I want it to be readable unlike most crusader coins . At the moment the revers says 'Such is life'...I might change it before I mint. Also, my daughters birthday is coming very soon, I wanted to have this process perfected by then so I could mint her a coin celebrating her birth...I didnt make it so instead I am having silver coins minted professionally which will look like this: the process will be using photoresist (nstead of plain acid resist which I was using before and did not give clean results) I am hoping that this will give me the ability to transfer fine detail exactly onto a steel surface. If it works, then I will be able to create coins with perfect clean text...Previously I was using just regular acid resist and trying to do the small text by hand but that process was highly flawed and wasnt producing the results I wanted. I will post again once I am able to get my hands on new steel rods for the dies and complete the process.
I also am interested to see how this turns out. Please post photos of your progress with the dies. Looks like you are under the gun to get the second coin out in a few weeks.
I would also like to see what kind of setup/equipment you are using. The design looks very cool, can't wait to see what your finished coin looks like.
Thanks, it may take a few months to get everything ready. I have steel dies but decided to go with a different type (mine are tall and thin, I want the shorter and wider to make it easier to strike) so I need to get they right steel bar at the right thickness and height. I need to get a Kodalith made of the design and then I need to see if the photoresist I bought is exact enough to transfer the detail. This photoresist is a way to chemically etch metal and some types are so exact one can etch almost microscopic letters. I will expose the resist through a kodalith mask with UV light then develop it. This should leave a coated resist area and a non-coated area, the non-coated will be where the acid will etch. I will use a nitric acid mixture to etch. If the resist I bought is not exact enough I will have to get a different kind. Its a learning process but I might be on the right track. I am doing this in my spare time with little money so its slow going but I am trying to get a process down. I just need to get all the steps right once and then I can always repeat it.
The birth coins are one thing - great idea. The celtics are something else entirely. What kind of marker do you plan to put on them to unequivocally show that they are not intended to pass as genuine coins?
I am not making celtic coins. I made a few a while ago that would never ever pass as real. It had an Odin obverse and a flower reverse (similar to the birthday coin flower)...nothing like that ever existed and the style of the reverse was modern. I am now trying to make a coin that is in the STYLE of a crusader coin. I dont plan to put anything special on the coin to mark it as a replica (which it isnt, it is fantasy) save inscriptions that would NEVER be found on such a coin and a style well enough removed from the actual style of these coins. I wouldnt worry...even if I manage to make a good looking coin, it will never be confused for real. These are just experiments. I am not trying to make perfect replicas to decieve...The end result, I am hoping, will be a tribute to a coin style on the obverse...and something modern on the reverse...like maybe cointalk, coinpeople, or my own website. Tell you what...if I actually get a coin produced that is even halfway competent...I post it, and you think it is deceptive. I will melt it down and burn a mark on the die...I promise. I dont ever want to be accused of try to introduce fakes...
This is going too far. A plain, unmarked disk would fool some people. Look at some of the fakes we have today that have fooled people. Have you seen the Caesar coin clearly dated 44 BC? I suppose a thousand years from now there might be an undergraduate paper written on the newly discovered Crusader king Drusus Rex. I'll hope it is caught by the Harvard faculty of 3009. Of the people posting on this Forum, how many could correctly ID a coin as Crusader style as opposed to other medieval options? That is among a group of coin hobbiests; the number from the population at large would be fewer. Some good could come of this. Perhaps you could make some coins that Hollywood could use for their next hist-fic-flik that won't make us want to vomit when we see them on screen. Perhaps the safe compromise is a legend on the reverse that reads DRVSVS+FECIT+MMIX. That would still fool the same crowd that doesn't understand why 44BC on a Caesar coin is a problem.
I like the idea for the legend, I might take it. I think I found a good cheap source for steal dies so in a bit I might start trying to get this coin minted. As for the birthday coins...They are complete...dont have a picture of them yet, I will try to get one up tonight. My daughter has 5 of them and now walks around with them in her little purse saying 'MY coins'....she takes them out, counts them...puts them in her purse again then walks around for a bit then takes them out and counts them...rinse-repeat all night.
