A visit with Dan Carr learning the coining process (Lakesammman, Zoins).
Lakesammman
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Sometime in early 2018, John (Zoins) and I began to cook up a visit with Dan Carr.
John had purchased a reverse die for the 1950 Seattle Coin club medal featuring a large beaver similar to that used on the North West Company token of 1820. I had the 1946 Oregon Numismatic Society die pair with the smaller beaver similar to that used with the Oregon Exchange Company $10 in 1849. When I saw it, I thought it would make a great pairing with my 1946 Oregon Numismatic Society die with the smaller beaver similar to that used with the Oregon Exchange Company $10 in 1849. We both thought a muling of the 2 would be a fun project.
We contacted Dan about the project and he was open to it. Little did the 3 of us realize how long it would take for the visit to come to fruition – I mailed my dies to Dan in April 2018 and the 3 of us exchanged emails for the rest of the year, finally settling on 12/17/18 to meet in Loveland.
We both must say that Dan was a pleasure to work with. We met for dinner 12/16 with Dan, his wife and my wife. Afterwards, we went to the Moonlight Mint for a tour and discussed the details of the project that would begin the next day. I must say that John had far more creative ideas in mind than I did! Stay tuned for a few examples.
Over the next 2 days, it was a real pleasure to be with Dan as he demonstrated the minting process. He enjoyed describing each part of the process and had infinite patience for all of our questions. I for one have to say that reading about it and experiencing it are 2 very different things.
Dan melted silver and gold in a graphite crucible, pouring each in succession into a flat mold, the product of which was ideal for rolling. As Dan brought out the scrap silver for melting, John saved 2 silver buttons for striking later. While making the silver planchet strip, there was a silver eruption from the flat mold that we called the “Silver Volcano”. The resulting planchet strip was signed by Dan with the text “Daniel Carr Silver Volcano Dec ’18”. Dan has 2 rolling mills, one a smaller hand cranked version, the larger motor driven, both useful. We then punched out the planchets on a hydraulic press, upsetting the edges of some, on others adding a reeded edge. Some of the strips weren’t ideal in width for punching so we made a few planchets with straight and curved clips. Many of the planchets needed cleaning with a “sandblaster” using glass beads. We both helped with the process as we learned more.
After all that, it was time to make the “coins” with the Denver mint surplus Grabener press. I must say, it is one impressive machine up close. Dan took us through the set up process, creating a few die adjustment strikes until the details were being struck up adequately. John saved the die adjustment strikes to document our process. We were surprised to see the entire top of the press moved with each strike and were able to see Dan adjust the pressure to get each piece just right. Dan even let us each do a strike ourselves.
Most of the pieces were struck out of collar as our dies were slightly different size and we were using only the center motif on most. It was fascinating to see the press develop 240 tons of pressure on some of the strikes with seeming ease, the press capacity 400 tons. The “broad striking” process was brought home as the planchets visually became wider with each gentle squeezing.
A number of coins were overstruck using both the center beaver motifs and full dies. For the inner devices, Tim I brought along 22 gold $10 coins, 10 of them 1849, the remainder 10 random date Indian 10’s and 2 random date liberty heads. Dan provided 2 large cents. John brought a variety of coins including $10 gold, $5 gold, 2 cent, half cent, and other coins. A full list is available in the mintage records. From these we struck coins with Tim’s set of dies from 1946 and a smaller number of mules using both beaver dies. John and Dan provided some additional coins for over striking including some half eagles. We also struck 3 mules on .999 gold planchets, 1 for each of us.
In addition, we struck a small number of silver and copper reeded edge coins using the central motif and a few copper, aluminum and silver tokens using the full diameter and design of both dies. This included 2 copper octagonal planchets Dan had left over and the two silver buttons saved from the scrap bin (residual silver at the bottom of the melt). The buttons turned out to be too thick for the Grebener press so Dan struck these on his small hand press, the only hand-powered strikes of our session.
Dan signed two planchet strips for John, including one with the text “Silver Volcano Dec ‘18” alluding to an event creating our silver planchet strip to memorialize the event. We were still picking up small bits of silver of the floor the next day!
Finally, after all our beaver strikes were done the second day, I had to leave for the airport. John had a few extra hours and had brought two additional die pairs for show, Abe Kosoff’s 1939 New York Expo dealer token and the Fort Totten Post Exchange dollar token die pairs. These were brought for discussion, but after the beaver strikes were done there wasn’t enough time to do a number of restrikes with these dies as well.
We are planning on publishing the “pops” of each and if Dan is interested, he can add it to his production blog.
Here are a few pictures of the process and a few of the "coins" Dan helped us create.
Pouring the molten metal into the mold at 2000 degrees.
Large roller press for creating the planchet strips.
Hydraulic press for cutting the planchets.
Dan at the press!
The Oregon dies used in the coining process.
Lakesammman and Carr at the press.
Die being engraved for a 2019 product.
A few of the fantasy coins created in the process.
Silver, copper, full size mule.
1946 dies struck on a 1849 $10.
Mule struck on a 1849 $10.
1 of 3 mules made on a gold planchet.
Comments
Very cool, thanks for sharing...
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I bet that was fun.
Very interesting and informative thanks for sharing.
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Never a slave to one plastic brand will I ever be.
Very cool, thanks for sharing. The silver and copper turned out great, and the gold is fun especially for your tastes.
Very cool!
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What fun.
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Outstanding what a fascinating adventure! Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for sharing your experience in detail. Greatly appreciate the insight
Very good post thanks for the awesome details here’s an original made by the 1946 dies
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/quarters/washington-quarters-major-sets/washington-quarters-date-set-circulation-strikes-1932-present/publishedset/209923
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/quarters/washington-quarters-major-sets/washington-quarters-date-set-circulation-strikes-1932-present/album/209923
It would be so awesome to visit Dan and see his operation.
I would love to see him play around with equipment to show me (us) how different mint errors happen. I would prefer to see any "manufactured" errors be destroyed at the end of the day.
Thanks for sharing the experience.
To borrow from Spock - Fascinating
That had to be one of your years highlights.
Thanks for posting this @Lakesammman ! The trip was a blast and it was great working with both Tim and Dan to get these out!
Beyond seeing how things are done and getting some pieces struck, the best parts of the trip for me was learning enough to be able to help and do things ourselves! I got to do the bead blasting, edge rolling, striking, and selective gold plating.
There are a few corrections for the article we discussed that don’t seem to have made it into the final version. I’m still traveling for the holidays but will post more later.
Looks like you guys had a blast!!
So, tell me.....how to I acquire these amazing pieces, especially the gold
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CoinsAreFun Toned Silver Eagle Proof Album
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Gallery Mint Museum, Ron Landis& Joe Rust, The beginnings of the Golden Dollar
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More CoinsAreFun Pictorials NGC
Amazing write up and story! That entire experience sounds like a dream come true! A Once in a lifetime experience I would adore. Congratulations.
Rocco
http://www.pcgs.com/SetRegistry/publishedset.aspx?s=142753
https://www.autismforums.com/media/albums/acrylic-colors-by-rocco.291/
Sorry to disappoint but a few are in our collections now
There’s a tradition of making errors that includes the ANA Summer Seminar and the Gallery Mint. Ken Potter seems to do some as well. But don’t worry, all of these are documented and will be posted!
I was half joking. Wow, it is awesome that you got to see and keep items from the D Carr minting process. I would love that opportunity
Good for you Zion I cannot think of better people who were lucky enough to be involved. Thanks to ALL those involved and Zion keep posting your wonderful coins you have been collecting as of late. I for one really enjoyed your work!!!! Happy New Years to All!
We also have some “real” die adjustment strikes. At first we were going to continue striking them to the right pressure but I decided to keep them so we swapped in a new planchet each time.
Cool, so those would be considered "real" errors while an intentional let's say double strike would basically be a man made error token, but still, super cool.
Kudos and many thanks to all to all for this outstanding, most enjoyable Post.
j
One of the 20 or so educational and very interesting posts that have graced our board. Thank you for sharing.
Happy New Year and wishing you safe travel.
Jim
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest....Abraham Lincoln
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Awesome experience! I would love to own one of those golds...
Here are a few of the odds and ends we made - the bottom 2 coins with the clips are small curved and straight clips, not well shown from the quick phone photo. The planchet strip was too skinny to make 2 rows of full round planchets, so that's the source of the clips. The 1/2 cent was purchased from Dan, the Morgan from John.
Will likely be selling a few in the next couple months to help defray the cost of the trip and the cost of buying 22 eagles!
Too early for POTY???
So cool! I love that last gold piece in the OP. Thanks for sharing.
Outstanding!
What an experience!
What a post!
"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working" Pablo Picasso
Open house at the Moonlight Mint would be an awesome event to attend! Thank you for your in depth article!
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NO annealing of the planchets before overstrike?
Well, just Love coins, period.
The time, effort, equipment, and knowledge that is needed is very interesting to read and see. Thanks for for this informative post.
Great read -- thanks for posting!!
That was a great read. Thanks for sharing!
It was a fun visit and a lot was accomplished, via hard work and improvisation. The dies were nowhere near the proper shank configuration to fit in my coin press. So they had to be stacked (with a planchet in between) by hand for every strike. The coin press' upper anvil "slapped" the back of the upper die to induce the strikes.
I learned not to use the blow-torch to heat up the silver mold. I've done it before, but this time I did it too much and moisture from the combustion built up in the bottom of the mold. When molten silver was poured in, the spontaneous vaporization of that water caused a "pop" ("silver volcano") and little spheres of hot silver flew out all over the place. That is why I wear eye protection and welding gloves when working with hot materials.
Excellent, excellent educational post for me! Great way to start the new year. I have a Lotta respect for Dan.
Must have been a Very nice experience guys!! Thanks for sharing. And PM me when/if you want to sell some of the rejects.
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I'm a novice at posting video's, but will try and post a clip with the press in action.
The press has a large flywheel and a knuckle joint - when activated, the knuckle joint is pushed on and straightened pulling down the hammer die in a smooth but forceful manner. Imagine your finger flexed, then the proximal joint being pushed on that straightens the finger out. That's the force that brings the hammer die down.
Here's what the dies look like in place - they are stacked on a larger piece of steel with the planchet in between. On the smaller pieces, you can imagine the time it took for Dan to try and center the planchet on the central motif each of which were a slightly different size!
Dan - if I screwed it up completely, please provide the correct description!
https://youtu.be/luJkEYNRfdw
Awesome
Great post. If you haven't checked out the Moonlight Mint website, it is really cool. I love the pictures of the restoration process on the press. You guys are lucky!
Looks like a good time. Pretty cool medals/overstrikes too!
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Dan, I really appreciate all the work you did to improvise with the dies and the cobs too. Working with your official dies seems smooth but doing the restrikes took effort and patience. The most seemed to be with the tiny Abe Kosoff dies that popped off with each strike.
I'm glad we were all safe for the unexpected "silver volcano" and the ragged planchet strip it produced. Here's a photo of what we saved from the volcano planchet strip to memorialize the trip. This was used to create the smaller 27mm silver planchets.
Wow! Seems like an experience of a lifetime. Thanks for sharing it.
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That's great, thanks for sharing the experience
Boston
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I was waiting to hear if that was a challenge or not. Nothing like some good ol' on the spot jury-rigged ingenuity
That's a great report. Met Dan , once. I wish I'd have had more tokens from Colorado. I believe that's something he likes to collect. Thank you for sharing.
way cool, that was a good read and fun
I wanted to post the two I have. Looking forward to my newest acquisition.
A big thanks to Lakesammman!
The Silver Beaver is a 2013 re-Strike using the 1946 dies Oregon Numismatic Society.
I am not sure about the Copper one.
Glad this got bumped as I missed it in January.
Awesome stuff!
looks like a blast. And to think all those ‘49 Eagles lasted almost 170 years before you all monkeyed with ‘em!
@dcarr, to reiterate @7Jaguars question, which I don't think was answered, was any annealing done on the planchets prior to striking?
This is a bit of an odd question as overstrikes were done on coins and tokens, not (blank) planchets.
My recollection is annealing of blank planchets was done before regular strikes but no annealing of coins or tokens was done on overstrikes.
The original description indicates that planchets were produced for strikes.
But the original question was about “overstrikes” and the planchets weren’t “overstruck”. They were struck the regular way.
So, planchets were annealed and overstrikes were not annealed.