Shire Post Mint has recently licensed with Saul Zaentz co to make the in-world fantasy coinage from The Hobbit™ and The Lord of the Rings™ trilogy! These are the coins that the characters in the story would be using... as when Barliman Butterbur has to pay Bill Ferny the outrageous sum of twelve silver pennies for a sickly little pony. What would those silver pennies look and feel like? The coinage has launched on a Kickstarter with the promise of coins being delivered to US addresses by Christmas! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1717678842/licensed-coins-from-the-lord-of-the-rings-tm-and-t Shire Post Mint is a private mint operating in a traditional manner. By that I mean we use real metals, like copper, brass, bronze, silver, iron, niobium, and gold... we NEVER electroplate on a coin or blank and we never job out work overseas. Everything is done right here in the USA. We use antique presses and hand-engraved dies, techniques pioneered by the likes of Matthew Boulton in the 1700s. It is true that our coins are not "legal tender" and therefore they classify legally as "tokens" rather than "coins". But our coins ARE the legal tender in the fantasy worlds from which they hail! Above are the 1407 silver sixpence, 1406Silver shilling (aka silver penny), and the 1406 two-shilling pieces from The Shire. Dies engraved by the late Greg Franck-Weiby, inscribed in the Kuduk language and the Tengwar script. Each year the coins change the inscribed date ANY the tree in a four-year cycle... Elm, Willow, Oak, and Pine. There are 32 different coins from The Shire alone available on the Kickstarter. The introductory video shows some shots of machinery and processes, and at the end there's me (Tom) with the whole crew. Today Shire Post Mint is a traditional family-run fantasy coin maker with four full time staff specializing in the fabrication of fully-licensed fantasy currency from fictional worlds, including George R.R. Martin's "A Game of Thrones™" series, Robert E Howard’s "Conan™" series, "The Hobbit™ and "The Lord of the Rings™" trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Jordan’s "The Wheel of Time™" series, L.E. Modesitt’s "The Saga of Recluce™" series, Patrick Rothfuss’ "The Kingkiller Chronicle™" series, Peter V. Brett's "The Demon Cycle" series, and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ "John Carter of Mars™" series. Shire Post utilizes traditional coin making processes to recreate the feel and look of ancient and medieval coins, from hand-carving dies, to tumbling and chemically or thermally treating the coins in order to bring about the weathered look of old coins. Our primary goal is to increase fans' immersive experience and help them achieve a "Suspension of Disbelief" moment. You can find Shire Post Mint on the web by using any search engine. Have fun! Tom Maringer, Mintmaster
The kickstarter is into its last hour as I write! I just minted up the last of the silver dalers yesterday. Most sets are already assembled and we should be hauling crates of parcels to the post office by week's end! The response has been phenomenal!
