September crown was great fun. After some initial insanity, we found a nice open camping spot right next to the king and queen. We had a bunch of people wandering through our camp on Saturday, but after that was largely curtailed
aelfgyfu and
hanksan arrived.
It was also a very productive event. I got the die for
aelfgyfu's largesse coins completed, and learned several new techniques in the process:
* Dentillated borders - Fairly simple round graver work, but very good to know how to do since many period coins use it.
* Sculpting with a round graver - fun and rewarding! I can make all sorts of neat shapes.
* Creating lines by chasing with a chisel punch, without an engraved guide line - I found this frustrating and difficult. Chased lines with an engraved guide line aren't so bad, but this was entirely different.
* Anglo-Saxon style lettering - Big chisel punches = easy letters! I got all of the lettering done in just over an hour! The lettering for my mon die took over 12 hours.
* Burnishing - Another easy technique, but a good one to have in my toolbox. It's a scratch-eraser!
We only had time for a couple of test strikes, but there aren't any major problems. Now to crank out a bunch of coins for this weekend...

(That's the badge for the Order of the Jambe de Lion, An Tir's grant-level A&S order) I'm a ship!
It was also a very productive event. I got the die for
* Dentillated borders - Fairly simple round graver work, but very good to know how to do since many period coins use it.
* Sculpting with a round graver - fun and rewarding! I can make all sorts of neat shapes.
* Creating lines by chasing with a chisel punch, without an engraved guide line - I found this frustrating and difficult. Chased lines with an engraved guide line aren't so bad, but this was entirely different.
* Anglo-Saxon style lettering - Big chisel punches = easy letters! I got all of the lettering done in just over an hour! The lettering for my mon die took over 12 hours.
* Burnishing - Another easy technique, but a good one to have in my toolbox. It's a scratch-eraser!
We only had time for a couple of test strikes, but there aren't any major problems. Now to crank out a bunch of coins for this weekend...

(That's the badge for the Order of the Jambe de Lion, An Tir's grant-level A&S order) I'm a ship!
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I just observed a stunning absence of my car.
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Go you!
Nice work, and well deserved!
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speaking of which...we need to pin down TRM about design ideas for their bezants.
can you price out silver vs pewter sheet? we'll think about how many disks we'll need and go from there...if they baulk at the budget, we may need to come up with a plan B.....
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bezant stuff
Today's spot price for silver $11.62, which means that we might get it for $12-$13 per troy ounce (39-42 cents / gram - lets use .405 as an average). The bracteate style coins need to be 0.2mm thick:
Cost of blank = volume * density of silver * price per unit mass of silver
20mm wide blank (size of a penny) - (0.02 m)^2 * pi * 0.0002m * 10490000 g/m^3 * .405 = $1.07 each
15mm wide blank - (0.015)^2 *pi * 0.0002m *10490000 g/m^3 * .405 = $0.60 each
10mm wide blank - (0.01)^2 *pi * 0.0002m *10490000 g/m^3 * .405 = $0.27 each
Pewter would be roughly an order of magnitude less expensive per unit weight, but the blanks would need to be much thicker, and we probably wouldn't be able to do the high relief style typical of the medieval originals.
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eek!
good thing we're doing this now!!!
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Now, we could do pewter. It will tarnish faster, but I can make darn shiny pewter coins, and they'd look brilliant for twelfth night, at least.
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what were you planning on charging them for the dies? I know they're hoping to have them for gifty tokens for later...
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The pewter versions would be thicker. If they want to use them as coins later, they'll need to be about 0.6mm thick so that they don't bend when people handle them (though maybe we can get away with thinner if we do a fairly deep ridge circle... hm, I'll have to look into this). Also, if we do a smaller bezant, it could probably be thinner and still work as a gifty token later on.
Anyway, lets assume 0.6mm for now, if we go thinner the price will scale linearly:
20mm diameter:
(0.02m)^2 * (pi) * 0.0006m * 7310000 g/m^3 = 5.51g = $0.146 each
15mm diameter:
(0.015m)^2 * (pi) * 0.0006m * 7310000 g/m^3 = 3.10g = 0.0822 each
10mm diameter:
(0.01m)^2 * (pi) * 0.0006 * 7310000 g/m^3 = 1.38g = 0.0365 each
I was planning on doing the dies for free.
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and thanks for donating the dies :). I thinkt hey're hoping to be able to strike/have struck coin tokens in teh future (not take them off the garments ;))
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No longer outranked by your girlfriend. :)
*squishyhugs*
you so totally rock.
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And thanks!
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That totally, totally rocks.
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