| 2000
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Subjects
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Page
Index
Links
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Link:
Leather Heaven Cow Skull Medals
Link:
A Quartet From The GMM Brass Section
Link:
Doe Dough Nipped In The Bud
Link:
GMM Mobile Mini-Mint Debut At 1996 Collectors' Jubilee In Tulsa
Link:
Compliments Of The Cookie Monster!
Link:
Rings From Resizing Planchets
Link:
Royal Mint Annual RenFest Medals
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Enlargement scans available on WWW and ScrapBook CD-ROM.
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| 12/24
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Leather Heaven Cow Skull Medals
Cow skulls are certainly an unusual subject for medals in my limited
experience. I had originally purchased a single cow skull medal, the
Colorado medal below on the lower right, so when I saw four more I
thought at first they were duplicates of the first medal. In my rush I
did conclude that they were all slightly different from each other so I
purchased the group. It occurred to me that some of them might be trial
strikes or patterns but I had no time to study them closely.
Click for
Manor or
Common Reverse enlargement
Click for
Minnesota,
Scarborough or
Colorado enlargement
It turns out that they are all unique medals. In fact, all the cow
skulls themselves are different from each other. These medals are all
32mm brass and the first four medals share a common reverse die.
The Manor, Minnesota and Colorado medals have plain edges and medal die
alignments. The Scarborough medal has an engrailed edge and coin die
alignment.
Can anyone help me put dates with
these individual medals?
Click for
Texas Obverse or
Texas Reverse enlargement
The Texas medal has unique obverse and reverse dies. It has a plain edge
and medal die alignment. All this makes me wonder how many more
Leather Heaven medals are still out there to be discovered. The
search is what makes collecting exciting...at least for this old man
anyway.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
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| 12/23
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A Quartet From The GMM Brass Section
Sometimes you are at the right place at the right time. That is the only
way a person could reasonably expect to put this quartet together.
Brass piece A is a 28mm type 2 planchet and brass piece
B is a 29mm type 1 planchet for the GMM 1995 Concept Dollar.
Brass piece C is a 28mm type 2 planchet made for a late
period cold struck Royal Mint (Ron Landis/Joe Rust) medal. It is the
planchet used to strike the "In God We Trust" pattern strike of the
Concept Dollar with the infamous "moon and stars" edge. Brass piece
D is a 28mm type 2 planchet made for an early period hot
struck Royal Mint medal. It was almost certainly not used for any of the
pattern strikes of the Concept Dollar. However, it is possible because
there were planchets laying around the GMM workshop so a person should
keep their eyes open just in case.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
I was actually interested in your planchet "D".
As I do have a concept struck on this planchet. I never understood why
this concept had the funny edge and why it cracked out about the
perimeter. I guess the heat treating for the potential hot striking
hardened my planchet back in their preGMM days. This was the one piece
that I did not understand, until now. Thanks for the Christmas Gift on
Christmas! Lindy Stone...Mon, 25 Dec 2000 01:01:23
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| 12/23
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Doe Dough Nipped In The Bud
As Joe mentioned to me, he and Ron were really pleased when they found
out that they could turn a roll of fifty pennies into a fifty dollar
bill. This was when they were playing music in bars for tips and the
patrons would happily trade a $1 tip for a Doe Brothers cent.
Of course, once the guys figured out that they could sell 1794/1994
Commemorative Dollar Medals at fifty dollars a pop they had no time left
to worry about turning pennies into dollars. So, the Doe Dough project
got set aside for other pursuits.
I found a Doe Brothers cent after a few months searching. Then, when I
went into Roscoe's Music Store in Eureka Springs, Roscoe would give me
only a single Roscoe's Music cent. He wouldn't sell me ANY and only had
three or four pieces left as far as I could tell. The really difficult
piece to find was the Leather Rose cent. As far as I can ascertain,
there will be no more Doe Dough cents in this series.
These tokens are struck over early brilliant uncirculated wheat pennies.
Because they are struck with a collar the edges are crisp, heavy and
wonderful! Not in the least like the pennies they were struck from.
The trolley car on the Doe Dough reverse is indicative of the Eureka
Springs area since trolleys are the primary means of providing the
tourists with access to the local attractions. One payment allows a
person to ride all day as many times as they wish. The town was built
into a very narrow mountain valley and there is extremely limited
parking available for the flood of people who come to enjoy the area.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
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| 12/22
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Click for
Obverse or
Reverse enlargement
GMM's Mobile
Mini-Mint Screw Press And Trial Die Strike
Piece |
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GMM Mobile Mini-Mint Debut At
1996 Collectors' Jubilee In Tulsa
Now I have a most interesting tale to relate. In the May 1996
Gallery Mint Report, on page 8, in GMM Mobile
Mini-Mint to debut at Collectors' Jubilee in Tulsa it says in
part;
We are proud to announce our first public
presentation in many years. April 26, 27 and 28 Gallery Mint will appear
at the 3rd annual Collectors' Jubilee at Expo Square, Tulsa State
fairgrounds.
We will provide a working exhibit that will demonstrate the production
of a medalet to celebrate this event. The pewter piece depicts a juke
box on the obverse in keeping with the 50's theme this year. The piece
will also feature a lettered edge and will be available at the
show.
The pewter piece shown above is a trial strike on a very thin planchet
from the show dies and not one of the show pieces described in the
publication. What is not generally known is that the show dies were the
second set of dies Ron created for the purpose. We have here another
case of attempting something that was too massive for the technology.
The small Mini-Mint screw press could not produce properly struck up
medals from the first set of 25mm dies. So... AGAIN... Ron had to start
over and he created a second set of 20mm dies to use at the show.
Shown below, for the first time to my knowledge, are products
from that first set of dies included in a presentation set of eight
pieces struck in pewter, brass, copper and silver from both sets of
dies.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
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| 12/21
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NOT! A
Brockage Strike Specimen |
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Compliments Of The Cookie Monster!
How do you eat an Oreo cookie? Everybody knows the answer to that
one. You twist it in two and eat the stuff in the middle first.
The apparent Lincoln Cent weird brockage of some sort shown above is the
reverse impressions you get when you place a cent between two pewter
planchets and strike the cookie, or sandwich if you prefer, in GMM's
Mobile Mini-Mint. You are looking at only one side each of two pieces
not both sides of a single piece.
Below is the same sort of cookie created with a Rosevelt Dime.
EMail:Gary Beedon
had both these unusual pieces created at the 1996 Denver ANA Convention
in the frenzy whirling around the GMM table.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
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Click for
HEADS or
TAILS enlargement
Gary's NEAT
Dime Cookie/Sandwich Tokens |
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| 12/20
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Click for
Obverse or
Reverse enlargement
With this
ring I thee... Whoops!
I have definitely fallen in
love! |
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Rings From Resizing Planchets
Now here is a REALLY COOL piece... every time I look at it I fall
deeper in love with it! Ron had just finished engraving a die (I
think it was for the 1998 Concept Dollars...I am checking to make
certain) and needed planchets for trial strikes. According to Chuck
Wishon, an eye witness, they dipped down into their junk box and pulled
out some old discarded planchets which needed to be resized to work for
the new dies. The ring shown above is one result of this resizing
operation. You can see that it stuck on the hole punch and had to be cut
off with a grinder. The hole in this ring is 25mm in diameter.
Chuck told me that they had problems with the struck pieces hanging up
in the collar so it certainly is possible that the thinner rings are a
result of additional resizing operations attempting to get a planchet
that would not expand too much and cause such problems. Sounds like most
of my home projects...lots of trial and error!
My biggest puzzle with this ring is why there was a large cent planchet
made of brass floating around in GMM's junk box in the first place. The
edge lettering is "ONE HUNDRED FOR A DOLLAR" so there is no mistake
about that.
Of even more historical significance is this fragile ring shown on the
right. It was cut from one of the experimental planchets for the blind.
This planchet may have been in the trash box with the large cent brass
planchet. I'll admit that my ring isn't nearly as nice as the one I
showed you previously but I sure am happy with it anyway. I know you
can't tell anything from such a small picture...just click on it for a
more reasonable sized scan.
At the same time the first two rings were created the one shown here on
the left was also produced. It is quite a bit more substantial than my
fragile piece but has a plain edge. Nothing really spectacular here but
it makes a nice addition to the set. Again...just click on the picture
for a more reasonable sized scan.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
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| 12/17
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Royal Mint Annual RenFest Medals
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Click on ANY medal for
enlargement
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1982
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1983
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1984
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Well... HERE IT IS! I thought I'd never get it put together. As
far as I know this is a complete set of Ron Landis' Annual Renaissance
Medals. So I can finally rest easy...right? Not so I'm afraid. Now
I need to look for these in silver...they are out there
someplace!
These are all 32mm to 34mm brass pieces. From 1982 through 1988 they
were HOT struck and from 1989 through
1992 they were COLD struck. The edges
often vary within a specific year as well as between years...plain
edges, engrailed edges and moon/star edges. Ron usually sold these
pieces with a loop soldered into a hole drilled straight down into the
edge at the top. With some regularity he misdrilled the hole and tossed
the medal into the box where I got these pieces.
RenFest Medal Obverse And
Reverse Scans
Larger Size.....
Links:
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
SUPER Size.....
Links:
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
I have no documentation to guide me so I have no clue if the reverses of
all the medals shown here are their "regular" matching dies or not. It
is possible some are trial strikes and it is also possible that Ron
struck these with multiple reverses. Live and learn I reckon...that is
what makes doing this interesting and worthwhile.
EMail:Verne R. Walrafen
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Click on ANY medal for
enlargement
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1982
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1983
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1984
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