The Man Who Bought the World - Didius Julianus

GregH · Jun 30, 2021

dougsmit said: ↑

Those are not likely to happen. My two sided pair is a plaster cast of a Alexandrian tetradrachm in the British Museum that was given to me by the late Roger Bickford Smith. We once traded casts of our collections but I have lost the ability to make casts now since I can not find a clay suitable for the impressions. I have bought three different brands but none do a good, sharp impression like the Plasticine I had 25 years ago. There was a time 100+ years ago when most coin photos were made by shooting plaster or sulfur casts rather than the coins themselves. This had a great advantage since coins with unevenly colored surfaces photographed better and they could be glued up on a board and shot at exactly 1:1 ratio (actual size) on a large format cutfilm camera. Compared to shiny or mottled metal, shooting plaster is a snap. Just last week I found the long lost (in my attic) box with my collection of old plaster casts and even a few made from indestructible epoxy resin that are really fun to make.
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Well, that answers a mystery that had long baffled me: why they used to photograph casts rather than the coins!

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John Wright · Jun 30, 2021

Didius and his ladies are rather hard to come by -- especially decent. Since I only collect Sestertii/Medallions, these are the best I've come up with (actually, the best I could AFFORD!).