Ron Landis - TV star

I was just watching a show on the wreck of the SS Central America when a commercial came on selling copies of the Humbert $50 gold octagonal slug. At one point they show the die cutter using "150 year old minting techniques", and this man looks to be none other than Ron "Scratchmo" Landis! I guess its not a secret anymore about which Californian gold rush piece you were working on. The commercial is on the below linked website along with a writeup on the piece.

http://www.zoomcoin.com/rare-coin-n...rica-octagonal-humbert-50-gold-commemorative/

Ron, are there any other videos or stills of you in action making this die? I'm sure there is a lot of interest in seeing the tools and techniques you used, unless they are state secrets, or course.

Merry CHRISTmas

Joe Paonessa

America's greatest left handed hobo nickel carver [West of Grosse Pointe Farms, East of the Mississippi, North of Chicago and South of Milwaukee]

Pretty cool!

I assume the back was deliberately not recreated so you'd (well, the company) would never have to worry about the replicas being passed off as originals.

VERY cool. It must feel pretty good to hold that. 2.5 ounces of gold. I like the design.

Peter

Wow, very cool. I heard this ad was running on CNN which is probably why I haven't seen it. When I saw the title to the thread I thought you might have seen the Billy Bob Thornton movie "Chrystal" that was filmed here in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. I was type cast as a banjo player and actually got my name in the credits. Great fun and even got paid $50 for two rather long nights of filming. My scene was with the leading lady, Lisa Blount, who played Chrystal, Harry Lennix (of Matrix fame) as a blind musicologist, Johnny Galecki (of Rosanne) and Harry Dean Stanton who played Chrystal's father. I never did get to meet Billy Bob. It was filmed on the front porch with a few other pickers. Harry Dean could actually play guitar and sing quite well. BTW, I'm NOT giving up my day job.

Anyway, the footage in the ad was filmed about 4 years ago in the lobby of the California Historic Society where I engraved the dies for a reproduction of the 1850 Baldwin $10 "Horseman" coin, another piece from the California Gold Rush. It turned up that right across the street was a whole stable of engravers, embossers, chasers and jewelers who gave me a tour of their operation that's been in business for about 100 years or more. They were doing some really outstanding traditional style jewelry.

I will post some more pictures of my tools if you like, although they're really not much different that what everyone else uses. I use push gravers for everything. I have a gravermeister with the big handpiece that rarely use except for hogging out large areas. I do use a few things for die sinking that are unique as far as I know. I sold all my antique coining equipment except for a few essentials. Actually, now I think of it, the link I provided last week to my old newsletters have ALL that stuff. The thread is titled "Die Sinking Info".

KCSteve said:

Pretty cool!

I assume the back was deliberately not recreated so you'd (well, the company) would never have to worry about the replicas being passed off as originals.

Click to expand...

Most of my repros have the mandatory COPY stamp as required by law. This one has an added box that is different from the original and explains the origins of the gold.

Hey Joe, I was just musing over your signature. (Greatest left-handed carver....) On the Mandolin Cafe website there is someone who's signature is.."I wanted to be the best mandolin player in town, so I moved to a smaller town".

I wanted to steal his signature, because I always thought I was the best mandolin player in this little town of about 2200. Then I met my NEXT DOOR neighbor, David Renko, who blows me out of the water. His main instrument is the sax, which he plays in a kickass blues band, the Cate Brothers. I can't believe the talent there is in this town.

Scratchmo,
I didn't know you were a mandolin player and a member of the Mandolin Cafe' like me. Keep my old pal Butch Baldassari in your prayers, he and his family could sure use it.

I wonder like the other poster if there are any videos or footage of you doing a coin? It would be interesting to see.

I met Butch at one of the Roanoke bluegrass weekends. He's a great instructor. I went for Adam Steffey's class, but it was like pulling teeth to get him to speak. I love Adam's playing but could use some help in the teaching dept. if he plans on doing more workshops. The third day, Butch taught and I could tell it wasn't his first rodeo. Of course he's done a lot of instructional stuff as you know. Nice guy too. I haven't heard the latest report, but hope he's doing better.

The only video I have of me working is little set pieces like in the commercial. Mike Craven filmed a lot for a documentary he was producing on the history of the U.S. Mint, but he was killed in a really bizarre road rage thing, and nobody seems to know what happened to all that footage. Sad.

I do have one video of poor quality on U-Tube with my group.....
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hogscalders&search_type=

I guess we should really be having this conversation on Mandolin Cafe. ;-)
Nice to meet you.

There are a lot of common interests among the membership here as you probably already know. Sam plays anything he picks up and is a famous watchmaker , Abigail plays a mandolin, and I can't name all the musicians that pass through here.

I like your band name by the way. Charlie Darrington was in a band called Traylor Parker & the Propane Tanks.

mandolins

Since this thread has morphed over to music, I have a question for ya'll. Has anyone heard of a Docy mandolin? The maker, James Docy, lived in Florida and made them until his death a few years ago. We picked up the last one his grandson had for sale at the family discount rate as my wife is James' grand-niece. Mandolin music must be in the family as my wife's g-grandfather Alexander Docy played in an Hungarian music group that toured the world prior to WWI. Any way, has anyone heard of one of these?

Thanks,

Joe Paonessa

Joe, I found one at Elderly Instruments. http://www.elderly.com/items/90U-3987.htm
It looks like Mr. Docy made a few of these possibly as a hobby. Like engraving, the whole world of hand-crafted instruments have undergone a renaissance. The best instruments ever built are on the workbenches of modern luthiers today IMO. I play a Summit F-200 built by Paul Schneider in Nashville. There's scores of really good makers out there. It's my understanding that instruments built by Nugget, Lynn Dudenbostel, and Mr. Gilchrist from down under have waiting lists into the next decade and get up to $20,000+ for new mandos. Someday when I win the super-lotto.