The Armour Archive

Derian le Breton

Clean the piece before switching wheels too, or you'll get grit contamination in your finer grade wheels. No fun.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

I have a standard 9' wedge tent from <A HREF="http://www.blockaderunner.com/Catalog/catpg31.htm">blockade runner</A>, and I've been extremely happy with it. It's extremely easy to set up, packs into a small box, and does well in all weather. It is plenty large for my wife and I plus a few bags worth...

Derian le Breton

:lol: 2" of snow and they are demanding chains on wheels. . . Did you miss the 4000' elevation part? We have real hills out here; a very small amount of snow or ice makes most roads extremely dangerous with west coast topography. Tons of snow in the midwest is rarely a problem for two reasons:...

Derian le Breton

You could try one that fastens at the side. I'm no expert on Viking soft kit though; I'm not sure if it's appropriate.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Wool, wool, and more wool. Linen against the skin for comfort.

A well constructed cloak wont "hinder your movement" very much... Though I wouldn't want to fight in one (but this is soft kit, so that's not very relevant.)

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Nope, different fluting on the metacarpal plate.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

My research is shaky, but after some reading I am of the opinion that the metal was shot cast into lumps (within a couple of grains' weight for the larger coins), and then these lumps were beaten into flans, which were then regularized and then struck. I've seen that proposed for ancient coins, but...

Derian le Breton

Jehan de Pelham wrote:I tend to take a while to git 'er done too. It's a sideline for me.

Definitely true for me as well (except for the royal presentation pieces.) I have half a dozen die projects in the queue right now...

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

I have a question for those who have struck coins; the to dies tend to cut the coins off the metal sheet or do you have to do that by hand after striking? In the middle ages it was done both before and after striking, depending on the time and place. My research indicates that usually it was done b...

Derian le Breton

Jehan de Pelham wrote:I can. If you PM me with your needs we can talk it through. It tends to be costly.

Ditto. A simple die will run about $50 (and I keep the die,) more complicated work will cost more.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

sha-ul wrote:but how big of a press?

I don't know, I stick to the medieval methods.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

how do you guys mint the coins? hammer& die? press& die? how big of a hammer? how much tonnage? The same way they were minted for thousands of years (including throughout the entire middle ages.) With a hammer and dies. I use between a four and twelve pound hammer, depending on the size of ...

Derian le Breton

What other kingdoms have moneyer's guilds? Anyone know of one in Midrealm. An Tir, the West, and Northshield all have active guilds. Meridies used to have one, but I believe they are inactive. The Midrealm does not have a moneyer's guild at this time. There are a few moneyers in Ansteorra that may ...

Derian le Breton

You might find this thread interesting:

http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=84059

I still plan to make all of the dies to do a replica necklace. Over the next five years or so.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

For our royal presentation coins, we generally do this: The obverse die is modeled after a period coin appropriate for the King's persona. If we do a unique reverse die, it will be modeled after the reverse from the same historical coin. If we do not do a reverse, the guild members involved in strik...

Derian le Breton

The Moneyer's Guild in An Tir makes a new die or set of dies for every reign in our Kingdom. I have made one, plus another die for when my knight was king of the Midrealm. We make one pound of pennies (240 coins) in pewter, plus two silver strikes. We are required to do this by our charter as...

Derian le Breton

That would be good--I found an additional option for the anglo-saxon side as well. Harold II minted coins during his short reign as well. I think there would have been a mix of Edward the Confessor and Harold II pennies in the purses of the Anglo-Saxons--though it seems to me that there wouldn't ha...

Derian le Breton

You're welcome.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Probably various bits of <A HREF="http://home.eckerd.edu/~oberhot/feud-home.htm">French feudal coiange</A>.

I'm fairly sure William minted his own coins in Normandy as well, but I can't seem to find an image with a quick search now.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Titanium and steel are very different beasts. As I recall Titanium cracks very easily. The heat treatment properties are completely different.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

The coins were given out by Raven's Levy:

<IMG SRC="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3288/2708823904_0888ea5f9b.jpg">
http://www.flickr.com/photos/derianlebreton/2708823904/

<IMG SRC="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3226/2708825366_d896ff65e6.jpg">
http://www.flickr.com/photos/derianlebreton/2708825366/

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Hooray! Like these? [img]http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii60/hjlmrinndanski/shippenny.jpg[/img] I'm not sure if that's one of the ones I'm thinking of. I have a photo of several of them in one of my books... I like this one too: [img]http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii60/hjlmrinndanski/ravenp...

Derian le Breton

Put the anvil on the inside, smush the rivet head on the outside. Use a rivet setting tool to make the smushed end look nice.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Some of my coins!

<IMG SRC="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3233/3102577141_847f9886af.jpg">

http://flickr.com/photos/derianlebreton/3102577141/

Derian le Breton

Struck or cast?

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

The Hedeby ship coins are the most commonly copied design for SCA coins.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Well, most of the invaders would have feudal French coinage (especially Norman - they minted their own coins after 940.) William the Conqueror's Norman coinage was quite debased, but after the conquest his English coinage maintained the high standards of fineness and weight control tha...

Derian le Breton

That's very advanced graver work. Good luck!

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

By the 11th century coins were being produced in parts of Scandinavia too (particularly Denmark,) so it would really depend on where people were from. The Normans had their own coinage as well.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Yep, all three coins in the second image are dirhems.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Some hoards contain Byzantine coins too. But Anglo-Saxon pennies and Arabic dirhems are the predominant types.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Also, I believe that the vast majority of Roman coinage used no punchwork at all. The dies look like they were made using only engraving (the broad shallow engraving for portrait work is really hard!)

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

The denarius is the obvious choice. After Constantine, the siliquae.

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

There are lots and lots of Anglo-Saxon coins in Viking hoards. However, the Anglo-Saxons made lots and lots of different designs within the same reign (sometimes even making specific coins just for the Danegeld.)

-Donasian.

Derian le Breton

Well, lead-free pewter is usually > 90% tin, so a copper/pewter alloy is more or less the same as a copper/tin allow, if the latter component in both is < 10% or so. I don't know enough about copper alloys to say what would look the most accurate, but given the numbers in the article I linked a 90/5...