I'm just curious if anyone has ever had any experience in the actual making of coins or tokens. I am really interested in hand hammered, hand engraved, primitive looking coinage, old and modern. I've seen several hand hammered coins made by people at the ren. fair and at other festivals, but i've never been able to get any clear answer on how to make or even obtain the dies. I know that the Gallery Mint does amazingly accurate recreations as well, but I am more into really primitive, ugly, rough looking stuff. If anyone can help me out, I'd appreciate it.

Afterthought: No I am not, nor would I ever want to counterfiet coins! Just thought I'd make that clear before anyone gets the wrong idea.

I have a pair of aluminium dies that I made when I was back in high school. I made them over a period of several months and still have them stashed somewhere. Basically I wanted to create something along the lines of a medieval English type penny. I had my name, title and arms on one side and a design on the other. I used air rifle shot for blanks for my "coins". I pressed several dozens of them on a shop vice. Somewhere buried in the basement in a box of memories I have a tube of the "coins" and my dies. I have actually thought of getting them out sometime and making something in gold as a commemorative.

My dies were part engraved by hand, part stamped with small screwdrivers and punches for legends etc. A couple of years later I smoothed the engraving out a bit with a rotary tool to get out burrs etc.

I should get them out and image them sometime.

Hardening the dies would probably be the most important make or break point. You could probably find out most of what you need to know looking at knife tempering.

I have a forge at home, and access to a larger one at school, and numerous torches. Hardening the dies shouldn't be much trouble, I'm more concerned over what to actually use for dies, and how to engrave them by hand. I can't even begin to understand how someone can do engraving in such a low relief.

When a die topic pops up, it always reminds me of this person's homepage:

http://www.designscomputed.com/coins/index.html

Especially this page:
http://www.designscomputed.com/vs3d/examples/nv.html

Daniel Carr REALLY does excellent designs and there are some that I honestly wished that make it into coinages and be circulated.

See if this fits the bill:

http://www.etching-metal.com/etching/acidmetal.htm

and here:

http://www.shirepost.com/Coinage1401.html

Some really nice sites guys, the one with the computerized coin making is really interesting, I have a background in graphic design, now all I need is a nice laithe like that lol.

This is pretty much exactly what I'm talking about, except I never thought of using acid etching. Maybe I could combine both this method and the otherone linked? What do you guys think?

I was thinking that you could try the little acid etching machine to get the image "started" onto the die and then use the "shire" method to deepen it for better relief of the coins.

What kind of acid is used for the acid etching from the shirepost?