BRONZE PRIVATE ISSUE TOKEN - THE DUCHESS AND THE TREE OF LIFE Cypress Mint Private issue bronze commemorative coin in honor of the Duchess of Cypress. The tree has 7 leaves and 16 blooms. Depicted on the obverse of this coin is the Duchess of Cypress. The reverse of the coin shows the Tree of Life bearing fruit encircled by double border and a single beaded border. This bronze commomorative coin was minted as a dedication to the Duchess of Cypress. It was minted by Leonidus of Cypress in honor of his wife. The Tree of Life represents their union and the fruit that this union has produced. Of course this is a fantasy coin I minted for my wife soon after the birth of our daughter. it is a merger of two 13th century German bracteate designs. The obverse being a bracteate of the Duke of Bavarian Swabia Koradin minted in Schongau. The reverse represents a slightly earlier design produced by Princes Abby of Lindau showing a lime tree with seven leaves and 16 blooms, the lime tree being the Stadtwappen of the town of Lindau. I minted the coin and made up a little story to go along with it. Why not? Have you ever noticed people who go to the Renaissance fair are seldom the serf or peasant but instead the knight, royal or the lady. I love the old bracteate designs so I decided to merge two that I particularly liked.
BTW, here are the examples of the bracteates I used. And a few I will use before or will in the future. I like them because the are simple and appealing to me.
Impressive. I've been tinkering with some old coin dies and tried a 20 ton press without good luck. I guess bigger is better.
I started with 10t and broke the press trying to mint copper, don't try to meet or exceed the press limit. 20 was not much better. With 50 I was able to mint the size I want to mint in most metals I want to mint.
Consider this, the tonnage used to coin cents is around 40 tons per square inch. So no a 10 or 20 ton press probably isn't going to work unless you are striking on aluminum or lead based pewter.