On March 8, Mike Ivester, with a little help from your editor, welded up a drop hammer for me. It is 7.5 feet tall, with a 50 pound weight.

We tested it on March 18, and I made five pieces. On the concrete floor, the whole unit bounced about 2 inches off the floor. Three tokens were acceptable and two were not. I kept one and gave the other two to Mike. The two that were not acceptable were not as fully struck, and the blanks were less than I would have liked. They were melted.

Since this is an outdoor "toy," I had to wait until it warmed up here in interior Alaska. I made my first strikes on May 4th.

Let me tell you, this is really too much like work!

First, I can only make 3 blanks from each pour. Fabricating the blanks is the longest part of the minting process for me. Second, as you can see from the photo, I am straining to lift the 50 pound weight with pulley.

The blank is placed between the dies, and these are duct taped together. The "Alaska Rare Coins" die is the bottom die. The blanks have a rounded rim side and a flat rim side. The tokens are struck with the rounded rim facing down on the bottom die. This is set in a wood stand, on top of a 2 inch thick steel block (to prevent damage to the base of the drop hammer).

It is interesting to note that when set on the ground outside our house, it does not bounce as it did on the concrete floor. I was afraid that this would absorb some of the pressure and result in a weaker strike. Quite the opposite has happened and I am getting much better strikes.

And lastly, even though these are decent strikes, I have decided that I really need to strike these twice. I have to remove the dies and token, reseat the token in the dies, wrap duct tape around them to hold them together, and do it all again. This second strike does not seem necessary for the detail, but it does bring up the lettering round the rim a bit more.

The last procedure is to stand the token on the edge and apply the number.

Let's see - about $20 for the silver and $15 for my sweat... These are available for $35 plus $5 postage per order.

To order, contact Dick at:akcoins@mosquitonet.com