Four Spirit 2 - Black Tortoise

BLACK TORTOISE: NORTH - WINTER - WATER

After a successful run of the original Four Spirit geocoin set, sssooocool announced a follow set in coloured clay. They're nice, but I like the original set much better. Check out the gallery below to get an idea of what went into their production.

The geocoins' icon is the Chinese character for "spirit" and is made up of three other characters: The upper part is the word "rain", the bottom is "sorcerer" and the middle part means "three mouths."

The four animals in the set each represent a direction, a season, and an element. On the reverse the animals' names appear in Chinese, with the top character being the colour and the bottom the animal name.

I believe this is supposed to be a five geocoin set, and I am missing East, somehow. Perhaps it will turn up in the piles of stuff around here one day.

Size: 59 mm | Weight: 43 g

The design is hand engraved on gypsum boards

The design is hand engraved on gypsum boards

Plaster production moulds are created from the artist's engravings

Pouring slip into a mould

Each set of moulds can produce a maximum 20 coins

The semi-dry clay being removed from the mould

Trimming the clay by hand

Sponging the clay by hand

Hand engraving the numbers and lettering on the edge

Coins drying before being fired

The dry coins ready for the kiln

Coins in the kiln

The coin is black when it comes out of the kiln

All coins are polished by hand to bring out the 3-D detail

The completed boxed set