Once we've got our precious metal raw materials, we need to create the steel dies used to impress our design into it. All drawings and designs were done by me personally. The 2005 and forward one gram gold, silver, and 1/20 ounce gold steel dies were professionally engraved by an outside company according to my drawings. All other coin dies were engraved by hand.

Here is a loose-leaf worksheet that I did for the 2008 logo and several 2008 coins. The engraving company cut the designs according to artwork selected from the sheet.

For the many dies that are produced in house, engraving has to be done by hand.

Here I am creating a punch that will be used to make letters on the Pine Tree Shilling silver piece. I start with a 1/8 inch round steel bar and I file it until the letter or design is complete.

Once I heat harden it, I will then sink the design into the die I am creating. After completing the entire design all around, I will then heat harden the entire die, and then I'm ready to start making coins!

Each die is a different size, some are quite large, while others, like this one for the One Troy Grain Gold are quite small.

After turning on a lathe, the letters " 1 G " are engraved onto the face, and then this small die is placed into a holder.

Due to the very small size of this coin, it is the only one not made on the hydraulic press. Each and every One Troy Grain Gold coin is made on a manual hand press. Even the lightest setting on the hydraulic press would damage the soft gold disk and tiny steel die beyond repair.

It takes lots of different tools to make coins. Here is just a small sampling of the equipment used. Some of it is manually operated, and some of it is powered

At each step of the production process the gold and silver that will become our coins is continually measured and weighed.

Quality control is extremely important to our company. Our reputation means everything; I would not put my name on anything I wasn't completely confident in.

Our coins and bars have traveled the world. We have had customers in just about every country imaginable, on every single continent. There are not a lot of places across the globe where our products have not been mailed to. We take great pride in our growing good name.

Our products are recognized for their purity, good looks and accurate weight. Resale values for our coins and bars equal those of any of the "Big Names".

The raw bars of gold and silver are carefully rolled to the proper thickness required for each different kind of coin. After each pass the thickness is measured, and the sheet becomes longer and longer as it becomes thinner and thinner.

Digital calipers are used to gauge the proper thickness down to the hundredth of a millimeter. A little bit too thin and the coins will be underweight, too thick and they will be wastefully overweight.

Care is taken to end up with a finished product that contains the weight advertised plus a minute amount of extra, but never below the advertised amount. If any metal is over-rolled or otherwise manufactured out of tolerance, it is re-melted and the process started over again.

We pay a lot of attention to make sure everything leaving our facility is just right. Our name is everything.

Once the sheets have been rolled to the right thickness, they are brought to the punch press. This machine can be loaded with tools that can punch out any of the diameters we use for making coins.

Right now I am making blanks for our One Gram Gold coins. Each and every blank is carefully weighed on a precise digital scale to make sure each one is within tolerance.

After this step, the blanks are cleaned and then sent to the press, where our coins are minted. Each different kind of coin requires a different amount of pressure, One Gram Gold coins for instance need 40 tons to mint properly

After minting each individual coin is again inspected to make sure the image came up the right way, that there are no manufacturing defects.

Once it passes muster, it is placed in a holder without touching human skin and is ready to go out to the customer, perhaps you.

Our coins leave having been measured, weighted, visually checked and tested multiple times, ensuring that only the highest quality product makes it out the door.

Any rejected coins, along with the webbing material around the blank holes is re-melted and sent back through the production line.

.