I have not been there in February... but I think it might be too early. At 12,000+ feet I would expect it to be snow covered then. The roads are not plowed beyond the community of Eureka. Access in winter would be by snowmobile or XC skis. It might already be too late this season. The site is on the...

... and while you're there... you might as well jaunt up to the top of Treasure Mountain and take some pics with the cache at the summit! Please post! The summit is at 12,987 ft. So if you toss a coin up into the air 13 feet, it will reach 13,000 ft!

Get to Silverton, go up the Animas River canyon. Past Eureka you will need 4wd. You can get up onto the shoulder of Treasure Mountain either from the Picayne Gulch Road on the south side, or via Placer Gulch on the North. Placer Gulch has a very interesting restored mill building you can tour. (free...

Greetings all! On my last road trip west I have placed two separate caches of coins in places where it is unlikely someone will just stumble upon them. One is in the Ruby Range in NE Nevada at an elevation of 9,000 feet, up Thomas Creek from the trailhead on pavement. One is in the San Juan Range in...

I've been doing this stuff a long time, and it took me a while to wrap my head around the terminology used with copper-based alloys... especially confusing: the technical vs common usage of the term "bronze". I have a whole shelf of metallurgical reference books here, from my dad's library...

I've known Ray for a very long time. Great guy! Highly recommended.

Canola is cleaner. Works great, easy to get, and easier to dispose of.

Discussing the values of pennies, silver pennies, &c I think some people may be conflating the ordinary small copper coin called a "penny" with the "silver penny". The farthing is generally considered a quarter of a copper penny. One does not usually say "copper penny&qu...

Just to throw another source of confusion into the mix :P Tharnis and Kastars (as denominations of Gondoran currency) do not appear anywhere in THE HOBBIT, nor in any one of the three volumes of THE LORD OF THE RINGS, including the appendices. The licensing of Tolkiendom is divided in twain. All pub...

That is indeed gorgeous calligraphy! I am seeking to design a coin for Thranduil's people of the Greenwood, or (Northern Mirkwood) and I think that style of lettering would be ideal.

Lovely sheath designs! As a long-time professional knifemaker (retired) I often mused about the relationship of knives and sheaths. Many beginning (And quite a few experienced) knife and swordmakers would say that the sheath was 10% of a knife project. They'd make the knife... however it was done. T...

Speaking from the point of view of a coinmaker creating coinage from Middle-earth... Tengwar is by far the most elegant epigraphic system available to the people of that time/place. By that I mean that it is both replete and purely syllabic. The characters have no meaning except a spoken one. One ca...

Very interesting casting projects!!! I've got a small casting setup over here... electric melt of up to 1350g copper/brass or 1550g silver. Mostly I use it to melt the scrap "web" left over from punching coin blanks into a flat bar 2" wide x 1/2" thick that I can roll out to make...

Some years ago (quite a few) my wife an I acquired five acres of pastureland and we decided to plant trees. We planted numerous different species, some common, some rare. Much of it is a forest now! In the back corner I established a grove of Maclura Pomifera (aka Osage Orange or Bodark). As many pr...

Greetings all! Tom Maringer here, owner of Shire Post Mint. New here! I realize this thread is a couple years old. I'd be happy to answer any questions about the coinage. But first I want to address the silver penny topic that came us several times. This was the particular episode that led me to sta...