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Coin Rings

Gotta brag.  No photos yet cause black and ugly.  Gotta get some steal wool and polishing cloths.  About a month ago, I started trying to make coin rings.  I just made my first successful quarter ring, about a size 7.  Along the way, had to buy a ring sizer / stretcher so I can change the size easily.

If you have not seen coin rings, give them a google.  Its a real cool idea.  You punch or drill a hole in the middle, then fold back while expanding the hole so you get a ring.  Then you size the things.  Very easy if you want to use a hammer and standard metal working tools like damping blocks.  But then you loose details.  But since so many people think it is as cool as I do, smart people have made special tools like hard plastic and specific angles so you dont take the detail out making them.
 
If they clean up nice, will post photos.
 
grantmichaels said:
It is cool.
 
It's also technically illegal ...
 
they say that but has anyone actually investigated that? i mean i have seen coin press machines in banks where you put in 75 cents and pick out what design you want one of the quarters crushed into... i mean how illegal can it be when that's a legit money making business and in banks no less and at every rest stop on the nj parkway more government property . im sure there are ridiculous regulations as to what theyd allow in those kind of locations let alone have a company that manufacturers the machines used.
 
it's not illegal to deface US currency unless there is intent to commit fraud in doing so. thats what i gather from what i have read.
 
smokemaster said:
Back in my grade school days we pounded on a coin with a spoon on silver coins to make rings.
Took forever...
 
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-silver-ring-for-25-cent
 
I did it in a similar way years ago.  Not much detail left when finished.  Is why I had to brag, spent a month figuring out how to do it with detail left in.  Finally did one.  So damn cool to still read the state and year or in god we trust.

Quarters do have to be stretched out a bit, so they get distorted.  But not much.
 
On legality, I think something changed since the last time folk looked into it.
 
Section 331 of Title 18 of the United States code provides criminal penalties for anyone who “fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales, or lightens any of the coins coined at the Mints of the United States.” This statute means that you may be violating the law if you change the appearance of the coin and fraudulently represent it to be other than the altered coin that it is. As a matter of policy, the U.S. Mint does not promote coloring, plating or altering U.S. coinage: however, there are no sanctions against such activity absent fraudulent intent.
 
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