Here's something most of us will never get to see in person in this lifetime: solid gold planchet (coin blank) strip! The gold Chinese Pandas are struck in .999 fine gold bullion, and the items in the picture are the leftover metal after the coin blanks have been punched out. After the blanks are punched, the remaining strip is melted down and re-formed to create more of the same.
What strikes me as interesting about this photo is the amount of "wasted" space between each punch. In the coin blank strip I've seen from the U.S. Mint's base-metal coins (such as pennies, nickels, dimes, etc.,) the coin blanks are punched very closely together to minimize the amount of waste, melting, and re-forming that must be done. In addition, the coin blanks here seem to be of two (or more) different sizes, and the punches are not as regular as you would expect a machine to do them, which implies that these blanks are being punched by hand!
This photo is one of a series taken by error coin dealer Fred Weinberg during a tour of the Shanghai Mint in China in 1983.
What strikes me as interesting about this photo is the amount of "wasted" space between each punch. In the coin blank strip I've seen from the U.S. Mint's base-metal coins (such as pennies, nickels, dimes, etc.,) the coin blanks are punched very closely together to minimize the amount of waste, melting, and re-forming that must be done. In addition, the coin blanks here seem to be of two (or more) different sizes, and the punches are not as regular as you would expect a machine to do them, which implies that these blanks are being punched by hand!
This photo is one of a series taken by error coin dealer Fred Weinberg during a tour of the Shanghai Mint in China in 1983.