Production of a hinge for a customized coin

After some time, I figured I hadn't made anything goldsmithing for a while after the Master Prospector memorabilia clips, so it was time to make something nice.

Any nice find certainly has a lot of emotional value to its finder, and not infrequently it is tied to memories of the prospector, a favorite place, etc. If you want to preserve this moment and also wear it as a memory, there is a way to make a completely non-invasive hinge on the coin so that it can eventually be removed without damage.

In general, jewellery made from coins has been made since time immemorial. I have seen the first period hinges on coins as far back as Roman coins, but unlike this procedure, it was always a highly invasive intervention. In this article we will show how this can be done so that the coin can eventually be removed without damage. In order to do this, it will be necessary to produce a perfectly accurate fitting frame for the coin to be inserted into.
The whole process was further complicated by the fact that the coin is not regular in shape and the casing has a different thickness, which is generally standard for Roman denarii.

I made the entire frame from found fractional silver of 925/1000 purity. I recommend using a higher purity (min 925). Silver of higher purity is noticeably softer than silver of 800/1000 purity for example. It is easier to work with and the coins do not suffer from settling and bending of the plate.

The first thing to do is to prepare the material, i.e. roll out Ag sheet 0.5mm and 0.3mm thick. The thicker sheet will serve as the base and the weaker one will be for the rim.

Cut a strip from the weaker sheet with a slight overlap. I had to leave a little more overlap here due to the coin having a different thickness on each side. The best way to find out the exact circumference of the coin is to use a piece of paper turned around the coin, cut the strip to match and join the two ends together with silver solder. The rim ring should then be carefully sanded and the unevenness in the joint aligned, for example, and soldered back to the backing sheet.

Carefully check that everything has soldered correctly - any imperfections will be difficult to correct after trimming and trim the bezel, sand it flat and solder the eyelet at the joint of the bezel.

Next, drill a hole in the inside and cut out the inner part so that at least 0.5mm of overlap remains.

Now carefully start to bend the edges of the bezel with a thicker flat head screwdriver, being careful of any contact between the tool and the coin. It is a good idea to attach the coin with hard sealing wax to the wood and clamp it in a positionable vise. Now solder the hanging loop, polish it and you're done.

The coin is ready to hang around your neck :D.

Conclusion: I hope you enjoyed this brief tutorial and if any of you would like to do something similar, feel free to ask in the comments. If you like articles like this, then I can promise you that there will be more to come on the subject of secondary processing of precious metal finds :D