I've seen plenty of threads where people are talking about what they'd rather see on a coin, what they don't like about the mint's design, etc. So, I was thinking... Why not take circulating coins and re-mint them the way you want? Stamp the coin back into a blank with flat dies, maybe dip it to take off any corrosion, heat-treat it, upset the edge, and mint it into a design of your choice. This seems like it would be perfectly legal, since you're allowed to modify coins, as long as you don't change the value, or melt down pennies or nickels. It would basically be a full-coin counterstamp. What do you guys think?
I'd love to see the face of the pimply teen-age guy at the cash register in your favorite fast-food joint when you hand him four of your converted quarters.
Nice idea, sure, and I can see the ads for porno shops spreading thru our schools. Still, a nice idea, except that I can't draw.
It is an interesting concept. The guy who makes those parody state quarters strikes them over real quarters, ans I assume this has something to do with avoiding counterfeiting accusations. Even if his designs are close to the real thing, they are done on real quarters.
We call that "overstriking". When you can still see the design of the coin used for the planchet it's called an 'undertype'. The goal is usually to conceal the undertype, though some folks enjoy leaving enough of it to identify. Basically... making coin blanks (or planchets) is a very large part of any minting operation. If the coin you want to make can use an existing commonly available coin as the blank, then it is often easiest to do that because then someone else has assumed the task of maintaining alloy and weight control. Eliminating the original design is the trickiest part. Flattening the coin as you suggest would work... but modern coins are so thin already that you seldom have the luxury of giving up any of that thicknes. The more usual method is to anneal the coins in a furnace, then use rolling drums, like rock-tumblers, with abrasive media to clean up all the toning and oxide skin. If the coin is annealed a bright it should overstrike cleanly.
