Coin Die

All the coins struck through the minting process are struck by a pair of durable dies. Speaking about a coin die, a steel rod has a face that will be the same size as the coins you want to produce. The steel rod will carry the design for just one side of the coin. So, to strike a coin, two such streel rods will be used. One steel rod will carry the obverse design, and another rod will have the reverse design.

Before making dies, the artistic representations are accurately digitized in 3D and then sent to an advanced CNC- Computer, Numeric Control milling machine, replicating the design on the steel rod's end. This is called the Master Hub. This is the first step of the die making process.

The master hub will be then put into a powerful hydraulic press to press it against another steel rod to create the second piece. This will carry the negative or reverse image of the coin design, and this is called the Master Die and the second step of this process.

Now, master dies are placed under hydraulic presses and then forced on more steel pieces to produce the Working Hubs. After getting Working Hubs, these are processed once again to make Working Dies. Generally, working dies are used to manufacture coins. One pair of dies can be utilized to create thousands of coins.

Speaking about a coin die's physical appearance, a steel rod has a face of the same size as the coins. One die will carry the coin's front design, and another die will have the reverse design.

In simple words, minting is the process of coin manufacturing. This process includes pressing pieces of metal with designs. These are the designs that you will show the coin's denomination. The image or design may also have some security features and about the country minting the coins. The process is generally carried out by mint, producer of coins, and handling the coins' distribution.

Yes, you can. If you want to make your own coins, then you can always take the help of SuperbMelt. We can offer your all types of assistance for dies and coin manufacturing. We will provide different options to make your coins look distinctive and original. You can create your own custom coin striking dies and produce coins using our coin die making machine. So, go on and start your own coin minting line now.

Here are the steps following which you can create fine gold coins.

Use a powerful casting machine or use a gold ingot machine to create a sheet or bullion. After getting the sheet, you need to put that into a rolling machine. To obtain the desired thickness, roll the sheet multiple times. While doing this, make sure that the metal is soft.

Now, using a powerful tonnage hydraulic press, punch the sheet to get the coin shape. You can go for a round or square shape.

Put the blank coins into your annealing furnace and then re-annealed it. After that, you can put the coin into the acid to remove the dirt. Remove the blank coins from the acid and keep them in a tumbler. Then add soapy water and white glass particles to clean them.

Now, press the coins with a hydraulic coin pressing machines carrying the logo. That's it; now you have your own gold coins.

To draw a gold coin, you can use graphics software to create designs that you want to engrave on your gold coins.

Coin die is the most crucial part of the coin making process. This is the thing that will be pressed on the blank, and it carries the design of the coin. So, it needs to be very durable. For this, most of the coin manufacturers prefer to produce coin striking dies from hardened steel. Dies made of this material can produce thousands of coins before they are defaced.

There is still no accurate answer about how the ancient made a coin die to struck the coins. You will not find any written record about the process. To give you an idea about this, we have tried our best to reconstruct the process of ancient coin dies making from the pieces of evidence and surviving artifacts that we have.

As per the available pieces of evidence, old coin dies were made of hard iron or bronze. If you consider a bronze coin die, you will find them easy to engrave, and they don't rust. However, the only demerit of this die is it will lose its ability to sustain pressure faster. It is expected that iron dies were used for striking large silver coins, decadrachm, tetradrachms, and more they have traces of die rust. Besides, these ideas had also to be used for large bronze coins.

However, there is no accurate information about how the coin dies were sunk. Based on some archaeological evidence and ancient coins, it is expected that a coining team could manufacturer around 20,000 strikes before wearing out a set of dies.

If you look at the Ancient roman coins, you will see standardized portraits on all the coins. The interesting question here is how the portraits can be so uniform as the coin dies were engraved individually by different artisans. So, here we can consider two replication processes. These are; Hubbing and Casting die. It is a fact that to cast bronze dies for coins, the Greeks used lead or bronze die patterns. They used the lost wax process.

However, as they used the hand-held technique for die and coin making, it often led to off-center and weak strikes. Some ancient coins also have misaligned strikes. So, you will find all the ancient coins will be a little different from each other.

Speaking about a die break, it is a form of failure when the coin die falls out or breaks off. Most of the mint workers or coin manufacturers called this a piece-out. A marginal die break happens when the coins are struck from a die that misses a piece adjacent to the rim. When not adequately connected to the rim, the tiny die breaks, called die chips.

The majority of die breaks happens at the margin of the die. There will be a sharp junction between the die face and die neck that is prone to failure. The die breaks that involve the rim and a little portion of the field is called the cuds.

As per the experts, the longer the coin striking dies are in use, the larger the die breaks occur. So, after a specific time, you should replace the dies with new pieces.

The coins' value having a die crack or break will depend on the fracture's severity and size.

Coins dies are made through four critical processes as mentioned above, i.e., creating a master hub, making master die, preparing working hubs, and making working dies from working hubs.

Die marks are like tiny marks and letters that appear on the coins to know about the die used to create the coins.

As discussed above, all the coins are made through the mint. The entire coin manufacturing process is called minting. Silver and gold coins are a small part of a range of different coins a professional mint produces. Nowadays, precious metal coins, for example, Canadian Maple, South African Krugerrand, and American Eagle, are produced as bullion coins that are generally used for investment. In some countries, gold coins are manufactured under license from mints and central banks. National banks and governments usually control such coins. Well, here are the processes of gold coin making.

The first step in gold coin making is to melt the required precious metals in a furnace using a high-quality crucible that you can buy from SuperbMelt. We will suggest you go for graphite crucible for this. Gold metal generally melts at 1064-degree Celsius, and silver melts at 961-degree Celsius. The excess heat then channeled to heat the water utilized in the process.

Coils around 40 to 50 meters long, weighing one tonne, are made from the melted metal. Once done, the coils are then rolled up, applying heavy pressure of around 200 to 300 tonnes. Then, they are cut down into blanks.

Now, it's time to create the design that you need to print on the gold coin. Many companies take the help of professional artists to craft a draft design before developing a plaster model. This is a process that can take around one year to get completed. The model is scanned through digital technology to create coin dies and punches. Powerful and computer-controlled engraving machines will then cut it with maximum accuracy to 0.001mm.

After the completion of coin blanks and dies, the striking process takes place. Under heavy pressure, the coin stamping dies are pressed into gold blanks. Once done, you will get finished gold coins.

The gold coin striking dies are replaced after a specific time when they become worn. So, to keep your gold coin making process running smoothly, make sure that you have a sufficient number of identical hubs to replace the dies.

After this, coins are minted, and before making them available to use, gold coins are meticulously inspected. If they pass the inspection round, they will be sent for circulation. So, this is the detailed process of gold coin making. When producing gold or other precious coins, purity and precision take topmost priority. For this, blanks are manually placed in the coin press and checked individually for quality.

The production of a coin needs 3 parts to complete, the upper mold, the lower mold and the collar. The collar mainly plays a positioning role. When the coin is squeezed, the material will be fixed within the diameter range of the collar, making the coin regular and full.

Therefore, if you want the edge of the coin to have a reeded edge, you need to make milled edge on the inner collar, and the stamped coin needs to be about 0.2-0.4mm smaller than the diameter of the collar, and it will be expanded by extrusion to press the reeded on it edge.