Limited Run Coins: Bram Stoker's Dracula & Goonies

lmgill

Sr Member
RPF PREMIUM MEMBER
Orbital Surplus has been selling off old and surplus items from film project for a few years now and has commissioned a few replica items from original molds and patterns. Check out their ebay store for current listings.

One thing we recently made for a special event were replicas of the original coins from Goonies and Bram Stoker's Dracula.
I made the originals of these coins for the films, and still have the masters and some of the molds.
The Orbital Surplus team thought we should make some of these available for the members of the RPF. (They will only be offered here)
So, we are offering cast pewter copies of a selection of these coins from original molds.

First the Dracula coin:
The original I sculpted from wax, which then bronze masters were produced. Using these masters a set of vulcanized rubber molds were made. We then ran a batch of bronze coins, which in turn were used to make a larger vulcanized rubber mold of about a dozen coins. From this mold we produced the coins for the film. most of these coins were gold plated and delivered to the prop master. As many of you know, these never made it into the final cut of the film, but were featured in the book about the film, and more recently the reverse of the coin was used as the artwork on the Blu-Ray disc.
What you may not know, the the rim of the face side has the following words;
"DRACOLI . BAL STCEFFE SEVRAWD . TNEGILID"
Which was the name of my company when we started the film, backwards...
"DILIGENT DWARVES EFFECTS LAB".


Dracula coin-all.jpg

These are the original Master bronze coins and one of the prototype molds. (Not for sale)
Dracula-master-mold.jpg

Close up of the satin gold plated coins and the back of the bright gold plated coin.
Dracula coin-gold-satin-both.jpg
Dracula coin-gold-bright-dragon.jpg


The coins will be cast from the original 12" mold in pewter, then plated in one of three finishes.
each order comes with a COA signed by Chris Gilman, who made the originals

24K gold plated Bright $40 ea.
24k gold plated Satin $35 ea.
Brass plated $20



Goonies coins:
I worked for "The Hand Prop Room" in the early to mid 80's. HPR is one of the main prop houses here in LA and as such I was fortunate to produced props and set dressing for a number of big movies.
Films like, Predator, The Terminator, The Natural, Harry and the Henderson's, Pee Wees Big Adventure and Goonies.

For Goonies I oversaw the manufacture of all the "Rich stuff". I think we made about 10 or 15 thousand coins and gold bars and such.
Production note: The main chest of "One eyed Willie" was an actual 17th century iron strong box, which was filled with these coins.

To make the coins, we had one of the sculptors make one master coin in wax, based on a Spanish Doubloon, this wax master was cast in Sterling silver.
From this coin, I made a number of variations. This was done by pressing the master coin into Wed clay, then distorting the clay by compressing it or stretching it, sometimes I made additional impressions in the clay. Then a wax was poured in this clay impression. This same thing was done for the reverse side of the coin, and the two one sided wax casts were joined to make a two side coin. The coins were made deliberately thick (real coins are much thinner) this was done to take up room in the chest while using less coins.
These coins were pressed into a series of 12" vulcanized mold discs and these molds were used to make the final coins. As a result of the different generations of molds and subsequent casts and production molds, the original unaltered "Master" coin ended up 2 different sizes because of shrinkage. (see photo)
The finished coins were gold plated with 24K gold.
Although expensive, gold was a better long term choice than brass plating. If brass plated, the coins would be shiny / reflective, but to keep them looking this way, they would need a clear lacquer coat, to keep them from tarnishing. However, with handling and banging against other coins, this clear lacquer could then be chipped and abraded, allowing the chipped areas to tarnish over time. Since gold does not tarnish, it was chosen.

I kept one of the prototype molds and a number of early coins we produced.

We are offering Gold plated copies cast in pewter, like the originals, in a couple of variations.

Goonies coin-all-Front.jpg

Goonies coin-all-Back.jpg


Since the original coins were only 24k gold plated, we are making these in only that option.
Each coin is $40 (no mater which of the 4 designs)

We take Paypal, and check only.

We are offering these until May 20th, when we will close this offer and produce the coins. Please allow two weeks for production and shipping.
Postage will be in a USPS flat rate envelope or small box. (which cost $8.50 per box or envelope)

This is the first time we have offered anything on the RPF sales forums, so If we have overlooked something please feel free to let us know.
 
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Nice.

Out of curiosity, is anything being done to help differentiate these from the originals? If not, I foresee a massive influx of "original" coins magically turning up in the future...
 
Nice.

Out of curiosity, is anything being done to help differentiate these from the originals? If not, I foresee a massive influx of "original" coins magically turning up in the future...

We have considered this, so we have a couple of options planned.
I have been asked to make copies of other props, when I do, I put some type of mark that makes them different. I started this because of all of the Jim Carry "Mask" replicas out there.
This, of course, is already an issue, as I have seen what I believe to be counterfeit coins being sold. There are so many people selling replicas of the coins both from Goonies and Dracula, ranging from pretty awful, to spot on.
The Goonies coins were rented by the production company, and if I remember correctly, HPR made a pre-agreed L&D (loss and damage) of 1000 coins. When they came back, there were exactly 1000 coins missing. I was told the producers gave them as crew gifts. So, there are at least 1000 original coins out in the world. While I have no proof, my guess is the remainder are at HPR still. I'm pretty sure they were also rented for "Hook".

The Dracula coins may still be at Sony, I have no idea, nor do I remember how many we originally made.
 
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They look really nice.What is the correct finish you made for the movieprops?
We did bright (shiny) gold for Goonies and the Dracula coins were gold as well but received an aging on set, I can't really say which is the best.
Would be interested in a set of the Goonies & the Dracula as well. Please advise how to purchase.
Thanks
Noted, As we get closer to the May 20th close date, we will ask people to pay for their orders via Paypal.
 

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