Coin Rings
My Journey
When I first started buying professional jeweler’s tools, the coin ring kits fascinated me but I never got them because I did not see a use and they are very expensive.
These days, I have been making coin reproductions and using the coins in jewelry. When I saw a used coin ring set come up in a lot of other tools, which included a second vice, Dremel Drill press, and multiple dremels with flax shafts for a very, very, very good price, I took the deal. It was like a now or never kinda deal.
I made my first coin ring from one of the reproductions of a Constatine coin.
Ring I Constantine
For Ring II, I used another Constantine then took a chance of making Ring III with silver using a silver dollar. I quickly came to feel I was not ready to work in silver.
So, I started working with other coins to practice. Ring IV was a Costa Rican Coin and Ring V was an Irish coin. I really liked this one despite its flaws and it was the first ring listed. For Ring VI, I used a Frank. The Frank came out pretty nice looking but the internal diameter had a taper to it. My next experiments were to see if I could remove the taper.
My partner started looking for coins for me to try when he is out thrifting and checking out estate sales.
For Rings VII and VIII, I was using a Shilling and a Mark. I was trying to focus on targeting a size and having a consistent internal diameter which I achieved, however, this moved the taper to the face of the rings so it was still not where I want it to be. I also decided I should better document the coins first so I actually took pics before punching the holes.
Ring IX was made using my Dirham-Abbasid Caliphate dies. Other than the strike being shallow, the ring came out really nice this time. I used a de-burring tool to work the edges.
Ring IX Dirham-Abbasid Caliphate
Ring X was my first ring to sell. It was made from a Portuguese coin and the only thing I disliked about this ring was the inside polish job.
Ring XI was the first I made using a ring mandrel to protect the inside wearing polishing. It came out pretty good except for a scar left from the de-burring tool.
I threw everything I had learned so far at Ring XII. I took my time to get a good shape and cleaned the punch hole with the de-burring tool very carefully. I used the ring mandrel to polish the ends. I worked to keep the reed side in tack while trimming down the inside diameter of the reed side of the ring.
Ring XII Half Dollar
