Posts: 845
Registered: Aug 2005

posted 07-30-2006 06:19 PM            

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Here's another favorite genre of mine, which younger people have probably never encountered: the silver coin ring made by 'spooning' -- at least that's what I call it, having never seen them discussed.

These date back to when silver coins were in circulation. When someone (typically a young man, I've been told) wanted a silver ring, he would take a silver coin (usually a quarter in the US; I also have a couple on Australian coins, in the center of this photo) in one hand and a spoon in the other, and start tapping the edge of the coin with the spoon, working around and around the perimeter. Tap tap tap, on and on, gradually flattening the rim of the coin into a circular band. Then you would drill a hole in the middle, and then file away the remaining part of the coin to leave just the band. A few in my collection have been filed down to where you can't see any writing left, but often you can see the writing from the margin of the coin on the inside of the band. One of these examples was then crudely engraved with initials, but most seem to have been left as plain bands. The rightmost of these seems to have been made from some kind of (non-US) clad coin, as there are places that look like silverplate wearing through to nickel-silver, but as I always heard it silver coins were really the only ones practical for the process because of the softness of the metal.

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