Platinum I can do, zirconium I have no idea at the moment but I can look into it, and Tungsten isn't workable with heat. It has the the highest melting point of any metal (6200F / 3420C) and I believe rather than being melted to combine multiple bits of tungsten together, its sintered.

The mention of the gold spoon was 99.95% a joke by the way.

Sandcasting with precious metals can be a bit sketchy. In the absolute best case scenario, the surface finish is just not fantastic and you lose a lot of detail. In the not that bad but still frustrating cases, you'll just get a ton of failures for each success. Even assuming the best case, you end up doing a ton of grinding and finish work which ends up more expensive by the time you are done due to the required man hours. I typically use the lost wax method using 3D printed Resin model, a high quality investment powder (casting plaster), vacuum pumps, and metal. The setup and material costs are higher than sandcasting, but the method allows far more intricate detailing and requires much less time to get a finished product.

Right now the issue I ran into is that my kiln is too small. The ceiling height can't accommodate a flask large enough to fit a spoon into it, so I'm building a new kiln. The fire bricks arrived broken, still waiting for the heating elements and control panel parts to come, and then I've got to assemble the thing.  

I can, but I've pretty much found out that in most cases, making single order custom things is prohibitively expensive.

I've got the PXC550s and am incredibly happy with them. I really like that you can turn the noise canceling on or off. The fit is really comfy, sound quality is great for the price range. My only grievance with them is the on/off switch for powering the headphones on is done by rotating the cuffs to fit your ears, so I sometimes set them down after taking them off my head and it drains the battery.

I'm not geared up properly to handle ferrous based metals right now, but if I get into forging so I can make meteorite kitchen knives that could be neat, though I don't know exactly how usable they'd be. I'll do some searching around for something interesting while I'm waiting for all of my kiln materials to show up. Francium spoon!

On a side note, I've got a ton of plans and partial designs for things that aren't spoons with different purposes in different materials. I just got on a kitchen utensil kick recently and decided I wanted at least one silver spoon/fork/knife for when I want to feel fancy eating a bowl of cereal. I've successfully made custom rings with Bitcoin private keys inside so you can have a backup and discrete way to carry your coins on you. A few decisions need to be made about whether I just ask people to encrypt and send me the keys to put on them, or if I could obscure the inside and make denominations of wearable keys. I've got a few solutions for obscuring the keys though they wouldn't be perfectly foolproof as a jeweler may be able to figure out what I'm doing and redeem the BTC. For a self funded model of course you don't have to worry about it trading hands so its not a concern.

Exotics are fun but hard to source and are often full of surprises. That said, if you have a suggestion I'm all ears and I'll at the very least look into it and give you a proper response as to why its a good or bad idea.

I picked silver first because besides being my forte, its actually a suitable material for dining ware. Making this spoon out of gold is really a pipe dream, I mean I could do it, but it'd be something like 4 oz of pure gold or ~0.8 BTC just in metal. Not really that great of an idea.

I've got a general idea of the direction to take, but still looking for input while I wait. The spoons are just long enough that they don't fit in my kiln now and I'm not changing the length as I find them very properly sized, so I'm building a new kiln. While I'm waiting for all of the bits to arrive, please feel free to keep the suggestions/opinions coming in.

My plan as of right now is to make two versions, one in .999 silver and one in Britannia Argentium silver. I expect they'll both be damn near 2 troy ounces, but I won't know exactly until I have them made. Not sure yet whether I'll mark 2 Troy Oz Fine silver on the .999 version if they do indeed remain above but ~ 62.2g of silver after finishing.

I sort of want to make a gold one as well, but I feel like that'd be kind of stupid...

Both @ 0.0165

Lot 1 @ 0.0155
Lot 2 @ 0.012

They don't know that. The percent doesn't matter, the concept of greed has to do with the desire for excess.


I'm not sure about that, assuming my premise of greed being a natural instinct is at least partially correct, it takes a long time to override instincts. I don't think human greed is something that can be eliminated. What I do think can be eliminated are some of the negatives that come along with greed, such as exploitation and general dickery.


Human built "systems" aren't a sure thing. We'd need a sure thing for hundreds of thousands of years to get rid of evolutionary tendencies. Your eyes can spot an earthworm on the ground and process information regarding it multiple times faster than other things because of its similarity in shape to snakes. I'm not sure the last time when a worm made me fear for my life, but biology says I might need to some day.

I don't think we can get rid of greed. 1% of the world owning 99% of the world's wealth or whatever similar statistic it actually is, is alarming. Its easier to make money when you have money, and easier to keep money if you have money and education. I personally only see greed as a negative when you screw others over. Someone who makes a lot of money with a good idea, working hard and paying their employees a livable wage in my opinion isn't a problem. A major company that treats its employees well also isn't a problem even if they are gathering vast amounts of wealth. Its the "rich culture" which breeds negative behavior. I feel like changing that is probably the easiest way to better the world.

Just ordered a few caramels. People on diets and nonsense now ruins my regular plans to get them a sack, but they will still be greatly appreciated. Thanks 

I know... I'll fix my mistake.


Still have not worked with Ruthenium. Besides the blistering high temps required to work with it, its quite difficult to source. I may need to find some to do some platinum blends, but for the time being its still not on my radar.

Watching this auction. I'm not refusing to bid early because I want to snipe it, I'm holding off because BTC could be up or down 50% by friday so I'll evaluate again then 

So the issue that I was apparently rightfully concerned about is that purity marks are legal standards, and in my example 98% fits no standard. You may have seen things marked as .900 or "Coin silver" those are all legal definitions of the material, meaning that they promise a minimum of 90% silver, but no information is given regarding the remaining 10%. You can legally call .999 silver bullion "Coin silver", "Sterling", or "Fine", but you can't call it .9999. Obviously its in most people's best interest to accurately mark their material, as a craftsman could legally call their 18 karat gold 10 karat, but they'd be losing a lot of money doing that. If I whip up some crazy alloy that is 92% silver, 2% copper, 1% cobalt, 2% palladium, and 3% germanium, the highest designation of fineness that I can legally mark it as is .900 or Coin silver. I could also use another legal mark guaranteeing a lower quantity of silver such as .800, but I could not mark it as sterling or .925 since its only 92% silver and not 92.5%.

If I mark something, I have to follow those standards, I can't mark something made of 94% silver as .940 as that isn't a recognized legal mark, .940 means nothing. On the other hand, the designation .925 means that I guarantee that the silver content is not less than 92.5% which 94% is not. Theres nothing saying that I can't tell people exactly what I use, but I can't stamp the metal with a number that isn't a recognizable purity mark. My options in this case are to stick strictly to legally defined marks, or just make sure people are completely aware that a spoon marked as 0.950 is actually .980 or whatever should I decide to use that alloy.

Heres what I can stamp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_standards

Thanks for your input   I picked up a knife forge by accident so we'll see what happens. Silver handle with a steel blade might be neat, I know a lot about the metallurgy of steel but not the forging process. That takes a lot of dedication to learn, and I don't have the proper know how right now to produce something I'd be comfortable with someone else owning.



And thanks to you as well. I got it damn near 2 oz in fine silver, we'll see how close I can get after sanding and polishing. I'll mark them as appropriate. The obvious solution to me is to make them in both fine silver for people who want a silver spoon shaped bar, and alloyed silver for people who want to eat their cheerios with it. I was going to have the fineness and mint marks directly on the model so I wouldn't need to hand stamp everything, but I suppose I can just go that route. Leaves the door open for a gold version if anyone is feeling fancy. Mostly I'm just tried of the airtight perfect condition collectibles market. I like collectibles that you can handle and use, then when you go to sell them, polish them up and good as new.

I should have the first one made fairly soon, I want to run a few strength tests on my heat aging and work hardening procedure to make sure they will be good to go for regular use.


*Edit*

As a side note, I couldn't bring myself to have the text say Hodl Tight, even though I had a feeling it might get more attention if I did. I'll show pictures of the final version when its ready, but the design is really super sleek, the Hodl would kill that in my opinion.

Just going to leave a few pictures here, they absolutely don't mean anything...

Decided to keep it 

Not sure what went on with the post office taking 7 days to get a package 200 miles but its now local and dare I say expected tomorrow...?

Thanks for your responses so far guys, its very helpful and addressing exactly what I was concerned about. Just something I wanted to clarify, we aren't talking about bars or coins here. Lets say for example that I'm making steak knives out of silver (no that wouldn't be a good idea) but thats kind of what I mean by I'm looking to see what people would be alright with. There are legal stamps such as sterling, .999, FINE, Britannia, etc that all mean something particular, but lets say for example as far as function goes, .999 would be too soft, .925 would have bad tarnishing properties, .950 is actually 100% stronger if its .958 but there is no legal .958 designation so it gets marked as .950 or .925



This is one of the most important parts to me as I'm a much better metallurgist than smith. It is 100% unacceptable to mark something as 22k if its 14k, but a jeweler can absolutely mark something that is 22k as 14k. I don't know why they'd want to do it, but you can. My intent isn't to deceive anyone of course otherwise I wouldn't be openly asking here, its about the case I mentioned above where you can get superior properties with modification. Adding palladium at $1700/oz to silver isn't a cost effective move to cut corners, but its a really interesting option for getting ideal properties. I can't legally mark something with a designation that doesn't exist so a .958 silver blend has to be marked as .925 or maybe .950. That doesn't necessarily need to be a secret from a buyer, but its something I absolutely wanted your opinions on before moving forward.

Once again, thanks and please feel free to keep your opinions coming if you feel like responding.

Hi guys, I've had a few question regarding Bitcoin collectibles and how you guys view metal purity and piece weight if you feel like taking a moment to share your opinions. There are a lot of legal standards inside of jewelry and precious metal marking that I'm curious whether they'd bother you as collectors. If you've been around for my occasional post or question, you may know that I do non ferrous metal work, and my current focus is on usable collectibles. If its not just a circle or bar of metal that you put inside of a plastic case, but rather something that you can handle, pass around, use functionally, etc the material properties become important, and I'm looking to get an idea of what people might be open to.

Final note before asking your opinions, everything that I would potentially mark would be 100% honest, transparent, and legal.


1) Is .999 Fine a must have for you? Be it gold, silver, platinum, palladium, how do you feel about alloys (sterling, white gold, purple gold, 90/10 Plat/Irid)?

2) Are standard weights a must for you? 1 troy ounce vs 1.3 troy oz, 17.983g, etc?

3) US 1 Oz Gold Eagle question: The 1 Oz US Gold eagle weighs 1.09 Oz because its 22K gold instead of 24K. Its marked as containing 1 troy ounce of fine gold, though the metal is not fine gold, its 22/24 % gold. Is that an issue for you?

4) Under marking: Marking is a minimum standard, would a piece marked 1 troy ounce gold that weighs 32.3 grams bother you? Same question with regards to purity, if I used 98% silver and marked it as 95% would you have any problem with that as long as you are getting more than promised?


Thanks for taking a moment to answer