this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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Historical Artifacts
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Just a community for everyone to share artifacts, reconstructions, or replicas for the historically-inclined to admire!
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That won't make coins. It will make the outlines. Molds are reversed. The raised parts are what won't appear on the final blank, while the cavities hold the finished details. This is the opposite of that.
It will make coins.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xin_dynasty_coinage
The image isn't this exact one, but you can see the mold must work on the same way. With a thick rim and slightly raised symbols on the inside.
Sorry, so your issue here is that the specific piece alone doesn't make coins?
What are you talking about? Just do a search for chinese coin and this are the perfect mold for them.
Indeed, the coins are broken off the resulting "coin tree" and then cleaned up by filing. The edges and details stand proud. Searching for "ban liang mold" will show other similar Chinese molds.
I do this for a living. This mold won't work. The material won't flow into the raised areas...only the cavities. You will end up with rings, and nothing in the middle.
This mold obviously won't work: it's missing the other half of it.
Thickness will depend how close the other half of the mould sits, when the casting occurs.
So...what does that tell you about the rings around the outside of coins faces?
I get what you mean, but did you consider they might pour enough molten metal into the mold so it overflows each cavity along the coin tree, with the whole patterned area becoming one side of the coin?
That doesn't change the fact that cavities are where the material flows. On this mold, the cavities are all the places around the coin.
I suspect this side of the mold is flush with the face of the coin and the other side is recessed to the depth of the coin. That would give the depth of the coin for metal to flow and still make this a workable partial mold.
Or you're completely right and this is an unworkable mold.
🤷♂️
If the other side is recessed to the thickness of the coin, then you would have a coin with a giant ring of material protruding off of this side.