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Author Topic: 20,000 sulfer casts  (Read 3620 times)

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Offline esnible

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20,000 sulfer casts
« on: July 17, 2004, 03:21:36 pm »
In the British Museum catalog of the 1990 show Fake? The Art of Deception, under the 'Forgeries of ancient coins by Becker and Caprara' entry, Martin Price wrote:

[Ancient coins'] collectability was confirmed and enhanced by the publication in 1806 of the first volume of T. E. Mionnet's Description de médailles antiques grecques et romains avec leur degré de rareté et leur estimation which, accompanied by 20,000 sulpher casts, provided the first reliable and comprehensive price guide to ancient coins.

What does Price mean by '20,000 sulpher casts?'

Offline curtislclay

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Re:20,000 sulfer casts
« Reply #1 on: July 17, 2004, 05:06:06 pm »
      Mionnet made and sold sulphur casts of coins in the French collection.  His first publication was a list of the casts he had for sale!
      The BM and Berlin have large collections of Mionnet casts.  Their main importance is that they preserve record of some of the GOLD coins in the French collection that were stolen and melted down in 1831.  The casts of silver and bronze coins are useful for consultation, but if you want you can still go to Paris and examine the originals.  That is not the case with the gold coins; Mionnet's casts are the only surviving record of their dies and exact appearance.
       Some 20-25 years ago the original molds of Mionnet's casts turned up.  They were to be published by a team including Maria Radnoti-Alfoeldi.  I know nothing about how this project has progressed.
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Offline Robert_Brenchley

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Re:20,000 sulfer casts
« Reply #2 on: July 17, 2004, 05:21:08 pm »
You mean the casts were made in molten sulphur? It seems an extraordinary medium to use!
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Offline curtislclay

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Re:20,000 sulfer casts
« Reply #3 on: July 17, 2004, 05:33:43 pm »
    The casts are two-sided models of the coins, in various colors, red, green, yellow.  They are called sulphur casts, but I know nothing about the material they are made of or the process of manufacture.
     The casts I make are in plaster of Paris, and two for each coin, obverse and reverse!
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Offline Robert_Brenchley

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Re:20,000 sulfer casts
« Reply #4 on: July 17, 2004, 05:55:22 pm »
Apparently its a mixture of sulphur, lamp black and camphor.

http://users.bigpond.com/ammodump/fact01.html
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Offline esnible

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Re:20,000 sulfer casts
« Reply #5 on: July 17, 2004, 07:07:03 pm »
Mionnet must have been a man of amazing energy.

I've seen his multi-volume work, which I believe has over 8000 pages!  As he worked before photography, there were only a few illustrations in that work.  It is astounding that it was 'illustrated' with 20,000 companion casts.

Pity no-one has re-issued the book accompanied by photos of the casts....

Offline curtislclay

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Re:20,000 sulfer casts
« Reply #6 on: July 17, 2004, 07:31:40 pm »
    The project of republishing all of Mionnet's casts, based on the original molds, has been undertaken, as I stated.
     Two series of volumes publishing Paris' Roman imperial and Byzantine coins have been started; their Greek and Greek imperial coins too are being published in SNG format.
      It would be good if all of these catalogues also took account of Mionnet's casts.  A note to existing coins should specify that they are the ones of which Mionnet made casts.  All of the lost gold coins should be both described and illustrated from Mionnet's casts.  Unfortunately this has not been done, as far as I know, with the single exception of Claudius 35, a gold quinarius of Claudius illustrated from the Mionnet cast.
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Offline curtislclay

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Re:20,000 sulfer casts
« Reply #7 on: July 17, 2004, 08:27:56 pm »
    Also Paris Augustus 514 pl. XXV, a moneyer's aureus of Augustus.
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Offline esnible

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Re:20,000 sulfer casts
« Reply #8 on: July 17, 2004, 09:06:21 pm »
Curtis, I continue to be amazed by your knowledge.

I misunderstood your comment about the publishing of the casts.  (I work in the computer field, where sometimes a delay of six months is enough to kill a publishing project.)

I'm looking forward to a new book, or rather a new translation, Ancient Numismatics and its History (Including a Review of its Literature) by Babelon.  [ http://www.numislit.com/Babelon.html ].  The 19th century seems the most interesting century of ancient numismatics.

Offline curtislclay

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Re:20,000 sulfer casts
« Reply #9 on: July 20, 2004, 11:24:06 pm »
       Babelon in his history of numismatics, by the way, gives a full account of Mionnet, his casts, and his writings, which I have just reread.
       Quite remarkable, his first 8-volume work on Greek coins was essentially a catalogue of the 20,000 casts he had for sale, to which he then added 8 further volumes, describing coins known from other collections or literature, apparently also coins in Paris of which he hadn't made molds.  
        So he was trying to spread knowledge of coins by providing cast reproductions of them in the days before photography, while also earning himself a living by selling the casts!  The price of the casts was 100 for 30 francs, i.e. 30 centimes each; and Mionnet had a workshop and storeroom in his own house where he made and stored the casts!
         Since a five franc piece was like a silver dollar at that time, a franc will have been about 20 cents and the casts were 7 cents each, the equivalent of perhaps $2-3 today because of inflation.
         This commercial and educational venture led him to publish what almost amounts to a corpus of Greek and Greek imperial coins, which is sometimes still consulted today.
          He intended to publish a similar work on Roman coins, but in fact only produced a much smaller summary of rare rev. types on Roman coins in one or two volumes.  I do not believe this work also functioned as a list of the casts he had for sale; I have both editions at home and will have to reread the preface.
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Offline curtislclay

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Re:20,000 sulfer casts
« Reply #10 on: July 21, 2004, 11:55:21 am »
    As I thought, Mionnet's Roman book is not simply a list of the casts that he could supply.
    Instead, he places the following Notice at the beginning of the book:
    "I have selected about 4000 coins in the different series of which the reader may order sulphur casts.
    "These faithful reproductions of the rarest and best preserved coins will have the advantage not only of encouraging young collectors to engage in a noble hobby, but of arousing in them the desire to understand the coin types, of familiarizing them with portraits of the emperors and illustrious members of the imperial family, of teaching them the chronology of events, and finally, of gradually broadening the circle of their knowledge and so fostering in their souls the invaluable appreciation of learning and the cultivation of the arts."
      Lofty ambitions indeed for models of fine Roman coins!
   
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Offline whitetd49

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Re:20,000 sulfer casts
« Reply #11 on: July 21, 2004, 12:34:25 pm »
Curtis, If I had a choice, I don't know whether I would wish to see your collection or your library first.
If you watch long enough, even a treefrog is interesting.  Umberto Eco
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Offline Robert_Brenchley

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Re:20,000 sulfer casts
« Reply #12 on: July 21, 2004, 01:07:13 pm »
Seeing a collection is great. Seeing a library is sheer frustration; you need the necessary time (lots of it) to absorb the contents! I'm a compusive book-buyer; I look at my shelves and wonder when I'm ever going to find the time to read some of it.
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