Once the metal is rolled into a sheet of the desired thickness for the coin to be stuck, the exact shape that is needed is stamped out of the sheet.  Here the die is coming down on the sheet

Here the die has pierced the sheet cutting out the shape needed. It drops through the female part of the die into a holding pan below.

Next to the piece being blanked out, you can see the hole in the sheet from one that has already been stamped out.

In order to assure that all the details of the image of the coin will be imparted onto the coin blank from the die, the metal has to be very soft.  Here the blanks are shown placed in an annealing oven at a temperature of 1150  F where they will remain for about 20 minutes.  This will soften them greatly.

Here is a stack of blanks, the top and bottom die and the retaining ring or “collar”.

First the bottom die is placed in the press

Next the collar is placed around the bottom die. The bottom die enters into the collar a short distance.

The blank is placed into the collar on top of the bottom die.

Finally, the top die is place into the top of the collar extending a short distance into the collar.  Thus the blank is sandwiched between the top and bottom die and surrounded by the collar.  In this way when the coin is pressed the metal will be “retained” inside the collar instead of being squeezed somewhat out the sides because the tremendous pressure that is applied by the press.

The safety doors close and the press squeezes at a set pressure or tonnage

The pressure from the squeezing pushes the metal up against the wall of the retaining ring.  Here the ring is being removed from the press with the blank jammed inside and with the top die still in place.

The top die is now tapped slightly to push the now-coined-blank out of the collar.

The set of blanks after coining showing obverse (front) and reverse (back).  One image came from the top die, the other from the bottom die.