Western Mass Clan hand cast zinc geocoin

[+Western Mass Clan]

I'm sitting here killing a little time while some video I'm putting together for my work finishes compiling and I thought I would share my latest signature item. I've decided to start minting my own hand crafted geocoins.

 

For the last two years my most popular signature item has been our WMC "Jumbo Wooden Nickel" (see my profile page for examples). Over the winter, I decided to step it up a bit and decided to hand craft my own homemade geocoins. After researching many methods of doing so, I finally settled on sand casting zinc. I carved a blank out of one of my jumbo wooden nickels with the idea that I'd fill in portions of the coin with translucent colored enamel to give the coin some character.

 

The results so far have been great. Here is Coin #001 that I made about a month ago. I've since minted about a dozen coins - most of which are already spoken for. I've varied the colors from coin to coin to keep things interesting. Here are some pictures of the finished product. Each coin comes with a certificate of authenticity and bag. The coins are HEFTY! Each is 2" diameter and nearly 3/8" thickness of solid zinc.

 

Right now I'm making only a few a week, so these coins will be reserved for FTF prizes, special cache drops, and perhaps the occasional geocoin mission. I doubt very much I'd be able to produce these in large enough quantity to realistically sell them. It's just a hobby for now. Ultimately I hope to make around 50 or so ... but that may take me all year! I'd guess about 40-45 minutes worth of labor goes into each coin over the course of 3 days or so.

 

The basic steps are: DAY 1: Prepare the mold, melt the zinc with the blow torch in a cast iron pan, pour the zinc and wait for it to cool, open the mold and extract the coin, remove the sprue and file down the edges, then CAREFULLY apply colored enamel to heads side - wait for it to dry completely. DAY 2: Apply enamel to the tails side - wait for it to dry completely. Day 3: Paint the lettering and numbers - wait for it to dry, then print the certificate of authenticity and bag it up. DONE.

 

The WMC Hand Cast Geocoin

 

HEADS SIDE with the WMC "brand" - the wooden blank I put in the sand mold is on the left.

 

TAILS SIDE with the state of Massachusetts, coin number and our caching name - again, the wooden blank is on the left

 

The WMC Geocoin with a penny (for scale)

Edited May 27, 2008 by Western Mass Clan

[+fairyhoney]

Your coin looks nice and also heavy

[+dark_onyx1982]

VERY COOL!! your coin has lots of character and it pretty darn cool looking.

[+Geo-Gophers]

Anybody that's lucky enough to find one in a cache will be chuffed to bits I'm sure.....as said above..... full of character. Fascinating to read about all the work that goes into these too.

[+whitebear]

I like hand mades ...would trade for one of my coins