Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is this?
Broadly speaking, Shire Post Mint is a small, family-owned fantasy coin mint. We make officially-licensed solid metal coins from a variety of fantasy novels and worlds as well as original coin designs, which are often made into charms and wax seals, as well as cast metal objects and various other products that strike (hah) our fancy. We have a small gift shop and mini-museum overlooking the workshop that you can visit located in West Fork, AR and our products can be found in a number of wonderful retail store partners all over the US.
Our officially licensed properties include JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings™, George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire™, Jim Henson’s Labyrinth™, Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn©, Conan© the Barbarian, and Patrick Rothfuss’s The Kingkiller Chronicle™. Our original designs include Moons, Pizza Coins, Decision Makers, Bowling Ball Worry Stones, and more.
Q: How did you get started?
Shire Post Mint began in 2001 when Tom Maringer bought his first antique coin press. He had a passion for coin collecting since his childhood and his years of knife-making gave him metalworking knowledge that he used to start making coins. The techniques used for hand-engraving steel dies and pressing one at a time are the same used in the 1800s and earlier. After a few years of research, refinement and building a small following online, his work caught the eye of George R.R. Martin, who was interested in having coins made from his new series of books, A Song of Ice and Fire. Since then, Shire Post Mint has grown into an internationally recognized company known for attention to detail and a high level of craftsmanship, all while still being super nerdy!
Q: Why do people want these coins? What are the coins used for?
When Tom was a child and traveling abroad with his parents, coins to him meant establishing a Sense of Place, a perception of a unique geographic area that you can hold and inspect in your hand. Amongst the chaos and turmoil of the Nixon era and the Vietnam War, what he wanted the most was to feel that the Shire was a real place he could go to. For Tom, the first coins he made for himself represented a piece of the books he most loved that he could hold in his hand and feel like those places truly existed. When he shared what he had made, he found other people could feel it too.
Viewed through an anthropological lens, Coins Tell Stories - not just the journey of an individual coin which links the past owners and the hands it has passed through and places it has been, but also on a broader scale offers insight about the creating body. The imagery and designs reflect the cultural, historical, and political beliefs and priorities of the place they were minted, a snapshot of that specific moment in time.
Who or what does the society hold in high esteem? Is it kings or deities? National symbols that represent strength, liberty, or other value? Is there a shared mythos being expressed?
What type of economic structure is in place?
What do the materials and artistry of the engraving indicate about the state of technology in that society?
Are there historical events or achievements depicted linking to the past?
Some people just love shiny things.
Some people want to fidget and a unique texture may be tactile and satisfyingly grounding.
Some people want a token from their favorite book or film.
People use them as jewelry.
Some love a unique art piece collection to admire on a shelf.
Everyone can use a little extra luck
Others keep a special coin on them to accessorize with their everyday carry gear (also known as EDC).
Some people get them as remembrance of a loved one or sobriety tokens.
Many use them to help make decisions.
Some like to invest in silver or rare metals.
Many use them to celebrate specific events or people in their lives, specific milestone anniversaries being especially popular with different materials.
They might be used in meditation or individual spiritual practices.
Others use them as tokens in tabletop games, board games, or even drinking games.
Sometimes they're jokes, a bit of fun or good humor to share.
Others are more practical and function as calendars or wax seals.
For me personally, as a child I used to hoard all the unusual coins my parents came across and occasionally roll in them like a wee Scrooge McDuck. To this day, I keep an emergency silver coin around in my wallet in case I need to barter.
Or if you're lucky, you can even use them as functional currency like at the Arkansas Renaissance Festival.
Q: What makes our coins different?
Shire Post Mint began in 2001 with a dream of a chest full of coins from a fantasy world. It took Tom and later Woody years of research to refine their traditional techniques, many of which were never written down and passed through word of mouth amongst machinists, engravers, and metallurgists. They're both self-taught engravers and artists with decades of experience in metallurgy and machining.
Most of our machines are antiques, many of which are over a century old. The original screwpress Tom started with is from the 1880's, based off of the classic design from the 1600s. The Waterbury Knuckle Press is from the 1890's and used to be steam powered. The Ferracute press is from the Denver Mint, which made US currency in the 1920's. These machines are workhorses and with proper maintenance and care still flourish, but often are discontinued by the manufacturer and replacement parts no longer exist, so we often end up having to machine our own parts.
We only use solid metals, no zinc plated cast coins here. In basically all cases, our coins will long outlive us. If you needed to, in a pinch, you could melt down your silver or copper coins to make wire or whatever use case and it would be just as useful.
Shire Post Mint provides their employees with a living wage, good benefits, and worker dignity. We don't believe in sweatshop conditions and you can trust all our coins are made responsibly by passionate and skilled craftspeople right here in the USA.
While yes, you can probably find cheaper coins elsewhere - I encourage you to truly look at it closely and feel it. Does it feel heavy and satisfying in hand? Zinc is light and plated coins often only have a very thin coating of the covering metal that will scrape off with a light amount of use. Is the design beautiful and thoughtfully executed, or is it a logo slapped on the cheapest metal possible? What message does that send to the people receiving it? Are the people making those coins being paid fair wages?
We don't want to make coins at vast scale and churn out low quality items in bulk. We're extremely proud to make artisan pieces, where you can tell the level of craftsmanship and care that went into it. In a world of planned obsolescence and a race to the bottom which benefits no one, we want to create true legacy pieces you can share or pass down to people you care about. To quote Brandon Sanderson, "Journey Before Destination" - how we get there matters, not just the end product. We want to make sure every step of the process is done as right as possible.
Q: Why don't you make (my favorite) coin or have ____ License?
We're very proud to make in-world coins that reflect a 'real' fictional place, and to be as accurate as possible we work with the authors and artists of those properties to make sure what we're making is as true to canon as possible. We want the coins you hold to be what someone in that world would feasibly have in their pocket and to make everything official means licensing.
While we would love to do all the fan favorite titles, licensing is often expensive and a lot goes into the process. It's not as easy as one might think! Often it's not a question of "why don't we want to do it?" - it's just that we're a small group of people with a finite amount of resource to spread around. We're very proud of our licensor partnerships and we try to be very purposeful about the potential licenses we partner with to make sure their culture and content match up with our company values.
If there's a specific property that you think would be a perfect fit for us, get in their comments! Make some noise and let them know! Sometimes it does help the decision making folks to hear that their fans want authentic coins as merchandise.
Q: Why West Fork?
The business and workshop operated out of the Maringer's backyard shop in Springdale, AR for almost two decades, but we really needed a dedicated place for ever increasing amounts of equipment. Tom's son Woody happened to live in West Fork, so it was serendipitous to build here and have a short commute for him. We're happy to be in the lovely Garden Town of West Fork, nestled in the foothills of Boston Mountains which forms the southwest part of the Ozarks. It's a beautiful place to be!
Q: Do you make gold coins?
The short answer is no! Gold is expensive and troublesome to deal with in a myriad of ways, and pricing is volatile and inaccessible to many. We want to make our coins affordable and accessible for as many people as we can, so we tend to use brass in place of gold for similar effect. We have rarely in the past made gold coins for special kickstarter projects, but it generally is not something we offer.
Q: Why bowlerite?
Decades ago, the family acquired a collection of bowling balls from various yard sales and as a kid Woody really loved to play with them and wanted to crack one open and see inside. The outer shell is the fun part with the patterns, colors, logos, called the coverstock and is generally made of polyester, polyurethane, or resin. This is what we make our bowlerite worry coins out of. Inside the ball is the core which can be made of different materials to change the weight, account for the weight loss of the grip holes, and affects the center of gravity and trajectory.
Tl;dr we think it's cool and fun!
Q: Do you make custom coins?
Yes, but it's not our primary focus. We've made custom coins for a number of tabletop gaming projects, conventions, creators, Kickstarter/crowdfunding rewards, Renaissance Faires, a wide variety of businesses to celebrate special events or loyalty programs, and more. Some things to keep in mind: we ask for a minimum coin amount of 150, for a two sided coin two dies have to be engraved, you have to own or have full permission to make the coin designs, and quality craftsmanship takes time and isn't going to be dirt cheap. We work hard to make sure everything we do meets our rigorous standards. New custom work timelines will vary based on the current shop workload. If you've got a project that would be a great fit for us, email info@shirepost.com with details!
Q: Do you make real world currency?
Absolutely not and please don't ask us to!
The sole exception at this time are the coins at the AR Ren Fest with whom we have the honor of being their official coin maker. You can exchange funds for $1,5,10, or 20 coins at the Bank of Dragonstone Springs and use them with any vendor at the faire in exchange for real goods and services. I can confirm it is so fun and immersive to have a big pouch of coins jingling merrily at your hip while you take in the sights and performances.
Check out our post about the Arkansas Renaissance Festival for more information!
Q: Do you make coins for gaming?
You can absolutely use a number of our coins for gaming or your tabletop game of choice! I personally have used coins as inspiration tokens to give to my players that tie to their respective classes, and as props of magical items and rewards for defeating the boss of the module.
We carry some gaming coin sets that are often used in LCGs, board games, or tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs). Our Rare Elements collection features a number of classic monsters and themes that are perfect to use as mini tokens for gaming.
Q: Do you make military challenge coins?
Broadly, yes. We're not currently licensed with any branch of government so we don't carry any for sale, but we're happy to do it as custom work. Please keep in mind we don't do enameling (fusing colored glass into metal substrate) or plating.
Q: Can I get this as a necklace?
The short answer is sometimes!
-Any of our original coins could be turned into necklaces, you can just add the item "Service Charge" and add a hole drill + jump ring and chain. Keep in mind some coins have nice blank spaces perfect for a hole to be drilled and some don't, so we may have to drill a hole in a weird spot.
-Licensed coins often have stricter requirements for what we can do to the coins, so generally the answer is no, sorry!
Q: Can you make one of these?
Probably yes, theoretically we could make a lot of things! But generally a one-of object or small batch of coins is not going to be very cost effective.
Q: I want to make coins - can you point me in the right direction?
The best piece of advice Tom got early on in his coinmaking journey was to get a good lathe and become very good friends with it. Research and learn as much as you can from Youtube videos and books before you ever start looking at buying a press. Keep in mind it's going to be hot and sweaty machining work, and mistakes are literally etched in steel and time consuming to fix. You will need a variety of skills - mechanical, metallurgical, and artistic. Practice makes perfect. Copper is a great material to get started with. The press is often going to be the biggest roadblock to coinmaking. We have found we need at minimum 50 tons of force to make an average sized coin, and you don't want to ever max out a press for speed or power - stay within the manufacturer's stated safety limits. Finding the right press for you will depend on your location, needs, budget, and luck. It's not as easy as we make it look!
I hope we've managed to answer some of your burning coin questions! Follow us on our social media channels to see more behind the scenes content or ask your own questions!
-Ryu, Shire Post Mint
