COIN ETCHING MASTER

Here we see a recently unearthed portion of the coin production process. This piece is known as an etching master. Etching masters were used to create the textual portions of the coin. A process using acid was employed to burn or etch the graphics into the plate itself. Once the etching master was completed, a pantograph was used to cut the production die for the back of the coin.

You'll notice the front of the etching master has a conceptual character photo. This conceptual art was etched onto the front in order to assist with proper text placement and size. The photo is totally different than the production coin and is similiar to those found on some conceptual sketch photocopies which surfaced. The look of the character portion was totally irrelevant as it only served as a placeholder for the previously mentioned reasons. These pieces are extremely interesting and shed further light on how the POTF coins were created.