Share my pain - the ones that got away

I started collecting ancients when in high school. By 1974, I had over 150 almost all Roman of the first through third centuries AD. The birth of my daughter and my wife not going back to work led me to sell those coins (for $500) to Joel Malter. I did not take many photos back then but I made aluminum foil pressings of the coins. I remember a few that are not in the box but the ones I found reminded me that I wish I had not sold those coins.

Foil pressings were made by folding aluminum foil over the coin and pressing with fingers or a rubber pad to transfer the design. The results were very fragile. Later I discovered you could fill the back with Elmer's glue to stiffen them but none of these were done that way. Tonight I decided to photograph some of them so they might remain recognizable. Many are dented and creased but would allow recognizing the coin if I saw it again. In the last 41 years I have never seen a single one of these coins offered for resale. Perhaps they were bought by a foreign dealer. Then, as now, I bought relatively low grade coins but the low grade coins of that day would be considered better by eBay generation standards. Here are a few that got away. I would buy them again but realistically never expect to see even one.

Most missed: Caligula sestertius worn to fine but smooth yellow/brown surfaces save a few pits across the face so worth more today than I got for the bunch.


The worst coin in the foils was my Didius Julianus sestertius purchased for 50 cents. The same day I got an even worset Manlia Scantilla but I have no foil of it.

Balbinus was a nice sestertius with green patina but the Pupienus was not so great. Neither was replaced when I started collecting again.


Another thread here currently showed a great Vitellius as. Mine was not as nice but it was a Vitelius as.


Many of the coins were relatively boring denarii of the adoptives and Severans. There were very few late Romans since they did not start interesting me until the 1990's. The coins shown here all have in common that I have not owned another since these. I will always wonder where these ended up. I wish I had at least taken proper photos back then.

Has anyone else tried foil pressings? Plaster casts are a lot better and photos still strike me as best.

 

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Fantastic!! Well, not the loss of your coins but the pressings. They must have been challenging to photograph. It will be fun to help you watch for any sitings of the above coins.

I don't have any pressings or casts but I did make a rubber jeweler's mold from my Corinth stater, thinking that someday I'll make a cast to wear as a pendant.

 

Even those of us who have played in this hobby for decades have trouble realizing just how many of the things there are and how many people collect them. Most never tell anyone, never join a club or talk online. I would love to know how many ancient coins and collectors exist in the county where I live. I know of none but somewhere my coins are hiding well. High end coins make regular appearances at major sales as their owners take their profits. The kind of thing I buy gets put away and sold when grandpa dies. The chances of seeing any one coin again seems remote.

 

how do you do this process ? I would like to learn it.

 

Really cool idea with the pressings! I found my favorite ancient and made one too, in case I ever sell...

 

I'm just amazed you bought a Didius Julianus for fifty cents! Has the hobby become a lot more popular since then?

 

It's a pity you had to sell those coins, from what I can see they look like coins worth owning. As photos will capture what's missing from these pressings (ie., colour), is there any reason now to be taking foil pressings? Even as I type this and haven't come up with a good reason, I'm tempted to go out to the kitchen and get some foil...

 

Those foil pressings are great. How did you manage to store them all those years without spoiling them ?

Collecting, back then, was not the same hobby : no need to be wealthy to get nice examples.
I got the following one for about 50 bucks in 1982


Nero, Dupondius minted in Rome in 65 AD
NERO CLAVD CAESAR AVG GER PM TR P IMP PP, Radiate head of Nero right
ROMA in ex, SC in field, Roma seated left holding wreath and parazonium, , right foot on a helmet
13.06 gr
Ref : RCV #1966, Cohen #280

Q

 

Several of the questions asked above can be answered with a review of changes I see in the hobby over the last 50 years"

1. The 50 cent Didius came out of a pick out box of 50 cent coins. Most were slick adoptive sestertii and LRB that I did not think were worth 50 cents. The box was on the counter of a small dealer (very old man) upstairs in an office building downtown. I knew three such dealers then in Indianapolis - all downtown withing easy walking distance of each other. The same dealer had a box of $2 denarii and even some better coins starting at $5. I was in high school and usually bought from the boxes. Most of his customers were above even looking in those boxes.

2. In the mid 1960's relatively few people had a camera that could focus on a coin. Today everyone has a phone or a scanner or a $1000 digital with capabilities far beyond what they will ever use. Foil pressings were a lot cheaper than film so even if you had a camera, taking coin photos did not seem necessary. Today digital film is free and foil is not worth doing. Plaster casts still have their place, though.

3. As I said before, I should have filled the voids on the back of the pressings with Elmer's glue. I was lazy and stupid then. Some things don't change but the way we show it might. A friend sent me a card with foils filled and glued in place that has survived better. He was an old man that bought denarii for melt in Europe and shipped them here in tins of oil to avoid the taxes. This was in the late 40's when GI's were sending back everything. By the time I met him in the early 70's his stories were all about the good old days that had long passed.

4. Like Cucumbor said, you could buy nice coins for $50 but usually I did not have $50 to spend on coins so I bought junk. Today I could spend a Social Security check on a coin and get something nicer but my mind still says I should be able to get nice coins for $50. Today about 1/4 of my purchases are over $50; then perhaps that number was over $5. I figure coins have increased 10x in my time in the hobby but many of the ones I bought have not.

5. If I saw my Caligula sestertius (I have no idea how much I paid back then) for $500, I might buy it because it was mine. If it were $1000, I'd have a dilemma. I have never spent that much on one coin. There is much more a market now for worn coins with a few pits than there was then so I was able to get the defective coin. That is what happens when the number of collectors rises. Kids don't get Caligula as easily.

 

LOL! Thank you for starting my day with a good laugh!

 

Sometimes when I think of the coins I had to sell when the kiddies came along, I wonder... prolly would have been easier to just keep the coins and forego the kids. The coins had a good return on investment ratio, the kids keep costing - with two in college now, even more.

 

Regarding your Caligula Ob Cives, I wouldn't be surprised to see it somewhere with newly tooled details on the bust. That seems to be a frequent occurrence for his bronzes.

 

I'm with Q => ummm, how did you manage to keep those foils in such great shape?!! ... dude, you have skills to burn!!



And although I am "amazed" => those are now merely cool remnants from your past => but moving forward => photography and/or merely keeping the coin seem like more efficient processes to me, my amazing friend (so eventhough it seems like such a cool idea, I am not gonna go upstairs and recreate your coolness with my ancient coins) ...

Mentor, apparently you were like an ancient coin Frontiers-man (bolding going where no man has gone before, manned only with your roll of Reynold's Wrap and your coin-loupe!!)

... yah, I must admit that I find the ol' www kinda helpful ...

You rock (great thread!!)

Oh, but I will post one example that I cc'd you about, but failed to win (it is "my" coin that got away)



... *sigh* ...

 

Looks like a fake NGC slab

 

It isn't difficult but to do it correctly requires a bunch of expensive equipment which I don't have. I made the mold in a friend's jewelry studio. The coin (or whatever object) is sandwiched between layers in a constraining frame, then sandwiched between metal plates, and melted together in a vulcanizer (heated press). That's a far as I went.

The next steps would be injecting melted wax into the mold and proceeding with lost wax casting to create the silver (or whatever metal) copy. I don't own the necessary equipment at this time since I'm not terribly interested in lost wax casting, instead preferring other fabrication techniques when making jewelry.

You can use room-temperature "rubber" but you really need a constraining mold and press. You can also use two-part silicone but you will likely end up with more bubbles and defects.

Here's short video showing how jeweler's molds are made.

 

Look what I can do ...





... just jokes

 

Haha

 

I have done pressings too on some old world coins, then filled of the pressing with melted Crayons, then you can leave the Crayon in when it hardens, you can also take it out and get a wax version of the each side of the coin, be careful because they are very breakable and melt in the sun.

You can see way more contrasts if you just leave them in a filled in foil pressing, that is what I recommend.

 

What I find most interesting in this thread, is the fact that you sold over 150 ancient coins some 40 years ago, and have yet to see any resurface.

It's not like you haven't been active in the hobby since then. So what that says to me, much as you alluded to, is that there are a lot more ancient coin collectors out there than maybe we realize. And many are content just to sit on their hordes.

It's actually kind of exciting in some respects. What hidden treasures are out there, waiting for Grandpa to pass on, and his heirs to have an estate sale? I suppose that's the fun part of being a dealer. You get first crack at some rarities and treasures that may have been hidden for decades.

 

@ DS. I feel brother that even in Numismatics, souvenirs are often more precious than present gold coins or diamonds, especially after several decades.