Have you ever looked at a coin and wondered who designed it, and why it had to be designed that way? Have you ever wondered how much time it took to place the individual ridges in, to create the eyebrows and cheekbones of the face in relief, to put the individual dates and words in? If you have an eye for these details, then you might want to know more about the coin engraving techniques that are in use today.
Avid coin collectors will tell you that the coins in circulation today are not as prized as the coins that never make it to the market. Some coins are especially minted, carved, created, or engraved to commemorate special occasions, such as the centennial of a country’s independence, the birthday of a reigning monarch, or the birth of a new heir to royalty. Other coins are the products of mistakes: they can contain misspellings, they may have been minted carelessly, or they may be stamped with wrong dates or images.
Avid coin collectors will also tell you that coin engraving is an art that stretches back thousands of years. Thanks to technology, today’s coin engraving is automated, but it still begins with a human touch.
Minting the Coins that Go into Your Coin Purse
Today’s circulating coins were not engraved one by one, but were created by stamping them with special stamps called dies. In the past, these dies were carved individually, and in the size of the coin which they served as stamps for. If you can imagine how a coin must be stamped in order to create it, then you can imagine what a coin die looks like: it is simply the coin in reverse, with the settings in relief as depressions, and with the words and numbers written backwards.
Special artisans were once tasked to make these dies, and they eventually became known as engravers. Dies were sometimes made of iron or steel, and engravers used different tools in order to create the faces and words that we see in the coins in today’s museums. Today, dies begin with the hands of sculptors and artists, but they end with machines carrying out the stamping work.
Designing a coin begins with a sketch of the proposed design, which can be based on the artist’s own ideas, as well as photographs of famous people, animals, or objects. When the final coin design is approved, the dies and molds are made. First, a sculptor makes a plaster model of the approved design, which can be three to five times larger than the coin. Because each ridge, letter, and depression matters, making a plaster model can take as long as three weeks to finish.
When this plaster design is finished, hot rubber is poured over it to make a mold. This hot rubber mold becomes the basis for another mold, this time made of epoxy resin. Because plaster is easy to work with, it can be easily re-sculpted or altered if any mistakes are found; epoxy and rubber are more difficult to work with, so the design has to be finalized at the plaster stage.
The epoxy mold is then used by a lathe, or a pantograph, which copies the design onto a piece of metal, creating the master die. This pantograph is a reducing machine, so it translates the large design onto a small piece of metal that is the same size as the actual coin. This master die is then used as the basis for making several dies for the actual coining process: because coining dies strike metal many times, their design will eventually wear off, and they cannot be used for coining. Many coining dies therefore have to be made to keep up with demand.
In this case, the engraving technique is automated, and the pantograph takes care of the engraving process. Using a pantograph can ensure that the design will be as good as the original plaster mold. Nevertheless, master coin engravers and inspectors still watch over every single step of the coin making process in order to ensure that coins are well made and correctly stamped.
Making Custom Designed Coins
Coin engravers use carbide tools in order to cut into steel or alloys. Whether a master die is being created by a machine, or a master coin engraver is carrying out an engraving process in his or her workshop, such carbide tools are invaluable for this special art.
Machines fitted with carbide-end arms are now being used by engravers everywhere who wish to carve images or letters onto metal. Coin engravers use carbide to engrave special coins; with the help of a magnifying lens or stereo microscope, they can create a line of coins with specially commissioned designs. Such an art can be interesting to observe: carving cold metal can be tiring on the hands, not to mention the ears; and it must be done precisely, and with the right metals, or the engraving will be more an amateur creation than an art.
These are only a few coin engraving techniques in use today. Some coin engravers prefer using manual tools, such as smaller chisels, in order to carve softer pieces of metal. Other coin engravers have their own preferences in terms of coin shape or size. Whatever the technique being used, coin engraving is an art that we can all appreciate and enjoy, whether we are coin collectors or simply using the currency to meet our needs.
