So for today's update, I've sort of been slacking, but I finally got my larger furnace finished



This one should hold ~5-10 KG comfortably, if I should ever need something that large. My little electric furnace holds about 1 KG depending on crucible dimensions, which is what I intend to use most of the time, but here it is.

My casting supplies are arriving early next week, and at that point I should be able to start making things. I will probably realize I need more finishing tools as I progress, but taking it one step at a time seems to be working.

the 1.02 Pidgeon's blood ruby I ordered from Dave arrived today. It is gorgeous. Thank you very much, and good luck on the move. Where am I supposed to get my gems now though 

Yeah, I'm not exactly sure what metals to make them out of, but thats not a big deal. All I know is that I probably wont do platinum/paladium/gold for the 2016 edition. I'm sure I'll offer them in a variety of metals depending on whatever seems suitable. As far as being limited edition, we may decide to set a hard cap on how many are produced, or just stick with the one week thing. If we have 100 orders in that week, 100 will be made, and after that week is over, no more. If we have 3 orders that week, only 3 would be made, and no more. Each piece will be hand numbered, and I'll be able to tell the mintage at the end of the week.

How to reduce scamming:

• Use escrow
• spend some time learning about Bitcoin and the forum environment before diving straight into the market sections
• do research on what you are buying and from who
• No matter how tempting the deal, don't go for it unless you are at no risk
• Ask for signed Bitcoin messages/PGP from long term respected members asking fishy before dealing with them
• Check to see if who you are trading with has recently changed their password, if so read above ^
• Don't rely on the trust system, read it as feedback and take it only for what its worth to you.

People who use other forums as examples for why something would or wouldn't work are starting out with a ton of incorrect assumptions. There are plenty of tools on the internet that can help you become anonymous. On forums for discussion about comic books or whatever else, the admins can probably make statements about how their banning is permanent, and IP banning is the end all solution. Here we know better. I'd be willing to bet that at least 90% of users here wouldn't even need to look up a guide on how to completely fool any forum identifying systems we could put in place. Here, banning pretty much means your account is thrown away, and we will be on the lookout for your other accounts. It really doesn't mean that the user is gone for good never to come back.

I forgot to comment on this part. I didn't know if we wanted to let people know about the idea yet, but whatever. Design hasn't begun for this coin, however we have been figuring out a lot of the mechanics around physically building it and our process for selling them. It is planned to be one of our earlier productions.

We will pre-announce when we plan to produce the Pizza coin, at least a week ahead of actual minting. For one week we will mint and sell them. After that, you will have to wait for next year's edition. On day 1 of the week, we will take the weighted Bitcoin average and decide that year's funding amount. As Mush said, it will be $41 converted into Bitcoins to commemorate the sale of the 10,000 BTC pizza. The idea behind it is that as the years go on, the funding amount will decrease little by little. The 2016 Pizza Coin from Vulcanalia would be funded with roughly 0.0651 BTC if minted today. Maybe in 2017 if BTC is $1000/coin during the week of minting, they would be funded with 0.041 BTC, etc etc. Of course the designs will change, and each piece will be stamped with the year, the # it was produced, and the BTC value of $41 that year.

No idea about what materials will be used or the size of the coin at the moment. Probably Copper, Silver, some various neat alloys, etc. Gold probably wont be on the todo list for this year, but the 2017 Bitcoin pizza could end up cast in gold. I'd like to make the coin relatively large so we can get a lot more detail.

I'd go with Satoshiless. If you are intending to move this game far enough away from Monopoly that it isn't copyright infringement, keeping opoly at the end might not be a great idea. If the goal of the game is to leave your opponents Satoshiless, that would be my vote.

Well, it was a joke somewhat. Every so often I forget that when read as text, jokes don't translate well  

Either way, Mush is on the team, specializing in design. Thanks for your support, I'm reading into how it all works now. I'm trying to figure out if data posted gets saved into a blockchain, and if that data can be viewed straight from the blockchain. That would be pretty useful for saving photos and information about things I make as a secondary means of verification that something is authentic.

That said, I'm not hugely worried about counterfeiters. First, most counterfeits are really bad. Second, counterfeiting factories have presses like what you would see from a traditional mint. It would be a massive hassle for someone to replicate my setup, replicate my designs, and casting methods. And finally, due to craftsmanship inconsistencies, weight should be a huge verifying factor. If I have a mold that is 5 troy ounces of silver, by the time I'm done finishing, sanding, polishing, etc the particular piece, it might be a couple of grams off of the molded weight. So each piece will have a bit of variance to it. As long as I document the ending weight, counterfeiters would need to get that one particular weight in order to fool anyone. Its possible, but again, a huge hassle.

*edit* Steemit requires personal info like your phone number and such. As much as I'd love to have personal info on a database of known cryptoholders, I think I'll pass an go the traditional route. I'll keep logging progress here and on Vulcanaliamint.com when I have it setup.

So heres my review of day 1 with my magicphone hotspot. I'd wait and review it later, but given its current performance, I don't have much reason to believe that it will suddenly limit the data. That and I had 15 HD video streams going trying to suck up as much data as possible, but it just made my house hot instead.

Full disclosure, I was not willing to shell out the full $430 asking price for something I was taking a gamble on, the gamble being that it will continue to work into the future. Magicphone offered me a cheaper less desirable phone model in exchange for a break in the price. I'm just using it as a hotspot, so I didn't especially care. I asked a lot of questions, and found all answers satisfactory. There was no hesitation to use escrow, so we did through OGNasty. I received the phone today, two days after ordering it. I turned it on, and it was all set up already with the stock calling and texting app disabled to prevent an accidental lock of service. On the front page was a shortcut to the USB Tethering and Hotspot settings. I turned it on, changed the SSID and Wep, and was using it within a minute or so. Using an internet speed test, I clocked it at around 12mb/s though I assume thats highly dependent on the area and signal strength. I figured I'd test out the unlimited data usage, and streamed 5Gb worth of movies before turning off my computer because I was getting hot. Strange fall weather.

I can't see the future, so I can't really say for certain that it wont stop working at some point in the future, but every claim that Magicphone has made for certain to this point has been true, so I don't see much reason to doubt them now. I'm satisfied with the phone, and I'd say to anyone who is interested, shoot Magicphone a pm and ask any questions you have, its worth the time anyway.

Confirming that Mush is indeed working with me. Both of our mothers were on TLC's show wife swap, but they canceled the show and didn't tell us, so we switched moms for a couple of years. Now we are pretty much brothers.

I quoted Mush's post and put it into my reserved first post.

Not to be a jerk, but I'm actually baffled that no one has even questioned this listing. Again, my comment has more to do with the nature of Bitcointalk and how deals are done here, not by the OP's listing itself, but, a relatively new account came along starting a >$40K auction claiming to be an old member providing the same stock shots that are in the old thread.

Offering to accept escrow was certainly a good call that inspires confidence, but just saying I'm sort of surprise no one has asked for pictures, a signed Bitcoin message, or anything like that.

Thanks, I'm considering making a Steemit account documenting all of my minting things. I'm not super familiar with the actual mechanisms of Steemit, but I have a couple of friends who are into it, so if it fits my needs, I'll give it a shot. If it helps me purchase a professional firing kiln while I'm at it, thats just gravy. I'll probably have a traditional blog on my website when I get around to developing it. I've purchased Vulcanaliamint.com but I haven't gotten around to setting it up yet. Getting the mint up and running is a higher priority right now than the platform for the mint.

Actually with any luck, my first product will begin minting within the next 7-10 days. Its nothing Bitcoin related, but it will give me a solid grasp of what is required to get custom pieces minted, so then I'll have a much better gauge of whether or not I can start taking custom orders.

Right now, my main concern which is something that I can't look up, it has to be figured out experimentally, is how long my molds will last. If I have to produce a new two part mold for each thing I create, its going to be expensive and only suitable for higher premium fancy well finished stuff. If they last a dozen casts, then I'll be cooking with oil.

The process of making a detailed mold takes a minimum of 8 hours. A bigger kiln will help me fire more molds at a time, but it sure would be swell if casting quality was kept through multiple uses.

Received my phone today, all set up as promised and ready to go out of the package. At Magicphone's request, I'm going to put it through streaming/torrenting hell, so I can use a bunch of data, and then I'll write the review for it tomorrow morning.

I will mention that the Staff is also having this discussion right now. The general consensus is that something needs to be done. The means of doing that is what is being discussed.

The only thing I'm not 100% sure on legally is my plan to make Bitcoin pocketchange (actual name is a work in progress). I want to make essentially physical bitcoins in small denominations at a premium low enough that you wouldn't mind actually making payment with it at face value, or face value + metal value. The US has some strange rules about making metal coins with the intent for them to be used as currency, even if its not trying to counterfeit any existing currency. As far as funding coins and such, I'd continue with the buyer funded model that most physical coin producers are using. I'm not super keen on the hologram thing, so I'm looking for ways around that, but I may end up going that route until I find a better solution.

The rest of it is fine, its no different than regular metalwork. All I need to do is make sure I use proper marks for the purity of metal. If I was making something out of sterling silver (92.5% silver) I'd make it 93 or 94% silver just so I don't have to worry about it.

As a side note, I also had the idea to offer other custom services like electroplating and such. If you want a fancy gold design on a coin that you have purchased in the past, I'd be happy to add it for you. That said, I will not counterfeit any existing things. For example, I will not gold plate your Lealana or Casascius coins into an existing gold piece. If you want a word or design plated onto it, I wouldn't have any issue with that though.

That is a future service however, I'd need a slightly different setup than just the tubs, acid, and gold I use now for tinkering.

Not to say that yours was done this way, but thats not really true. I hadn't thought about it before, but I could electroplate any shapes someone wanted on a coin for less than $20. You just need a couple of acids, a bit of gold, a battery, and plastic wrap with whatever shape you want to be plated cut into it.

That said, that comparison is like saying collectors coins with flaws are worthless because someone could get an unflawed coin and replicate the flaw themselves. Things that are messed up straight from the mint tend to have a higher value with collectors.

Thanks, Its a pretty humble setup, but it will work until I can get larger equipment. With what I have, I can produce things of the same quality as a more sophisticated setup, just not as fast. Id like to say that Ill be producing something by the end of the month, but I can't really say until I have everything I need. I'm getting pretty close to starting production though.

I'll be releasing my own sets of coins and other things as well as offering mint services (TBA). I'm hoping my prices will be competitive, the one thing I haven't really accounted for yet is how much time it will take me to produce everything. I've figured out that I'll have no problem with bottom line, low premium cast pieces, and top of the line fancy higher premium pieces. I've just got to figure out how to do the middle of the road pieces though. I want to be able to produce things that are accessible to anyone.

I think when I reach the point where I can get a professional pottery kiln for the investment flasks, I'll be cooking with oil. Then I'll be able to produce even the nicer stuff more quickly, bringing costs down. They start at $5k + so I'll probably need to hold off for a while. Unless I make my own that is.... hmmm... I'll be back when finished with my sketches.


I figured I'd share my prelim setup with you guys. Still assembling so things are a mess, there are tons of boxes, and things to keep or put away, but heres what I'm starting with.

I've seen that done before. Valcambi Suisse makes a 100g bullion bar that is made up of 100 1 gram bars that are supposedly easily snapped off of each other. I'm not 100% sure how that would be manufactured, but even if I can't do something like that, I actually got a completely unrelated idea which is really really cool. A puzzle made of metal, that you can collect the pieces and snap them together to make some sort of picture.

My firing furnace arrived today, however it had a bad PID controller, so the manufacturer is sending me a replacement part. Still waiting for my vacuum casting table anyway, so it doesn't really bump out my timeline.

My larger home made propane furnace is just drying now, so I'll snap a pic or two of that just for giggles. I will really only need to use that if someone wants a 100+ Oz piece.

And, I now have the first design for one of my non bitcoin related projects finished and printed, so I'll at least have something to show in the near future. They are little necklaces promoting my friend's steam game. Highly doubt anyone here would be interested, however it will at least be an example of my craftsmanship.

I grabbed the 1.02 Ct Ruby. I've known Dave for a long time, and he does great work, can't wait to get it. Best of luck on your move.