I've only owned 50 or so rings (see my website for a partial catalog of the rings I've actually owned). Based upon this experience, I for one believe Totenkopf rings to have been investment cast, and was one of the first researchers to publish my opinion. The physical evidence is pretty overwhelming in my view, though Don and Gaspare and Jim Modena will disagree, which they are fully free to do. Consider this analysis, which cannot be dismissed out of hand:
http://www.craiggottlieb.com/d...ame=Lost+Wax+CastingFor me, the most obvious physical evidence that they were investment cast is that "mint condition" rings can vary in the sharpness of detail, which can only be attributed to the use of rubber moulds from which wax models were created, before they were invested in silver. A die struck example would not allow for this nuance.
Still, it's obvious that researchers can disagree on this subject, and so I personally do not believe that anyone should speak in absolute terms about this interesting but somewhat irrelevant aspect of ring study. I say irrelevant because although I find speculation along this line to be interesting and fun, the "how" is not as important as the "what" in ring study. The Wikipedia article is of course inaccurate in many other respects.
