Regency Pastimes: Casting Coins

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CASTING IN PLASTER SULPHUR & c Taking the impressions of coins medals & c is independently of its utility a most interesting amusement This art is of con siderable importance to collectors of antique coins & c It is often difficult and always expensive to purchase superior specimens of which however exact models may be obtained by casting without the slightest injury to the originals The mould is made in the following manner Take a strip of paper a quarter or third of an inch wide roll it twice tight round the rim of the coin or gem of which a cast is intended to be taken and fasten the end with very stiff gum water which will hold it instantly Rub a very little oil with a camel's hair pencil over the coin in order to prevent the plaster from sticking then mix some fine plaster of Paris with as much water as will make it almost as thick as treacle apply it quickly to the coin on which it will be held by the paper rim It sets almost instantly and may be taken off in a few hours but the longer it remains undisturbed the better The mould which is thus obtained is the reverse of the coin that is the impression is concave like a seal When the moulds are so dry that they will not wrinkle a piece of paper laid flat upon their surface let them be well saturated with the best boiled linseed oil placing the moulds with their surfaces upward that the whole of the oil may be absorbed They must be covered from dust and nothing should touch their surfaces lest they suffer injury Moulds well prepared in this manner being dried about two days after being oiled will stand a long time for the casting of either plaster or sulphur When used either Florence oil or a little hog's lard the latter is to be preferred should be applied very tenderly over the mould with a little of the finest cotton wool and the cotton wool without lard after wards passed lightly over the surface to leave as little as possible of the unctuous matter upon the mould that the casts may be the finer Put paper round them as was before done to the coin pour on plaster in the same manner and a fac simile of the original will be produced Good casts may also be made of sulphur melted in an iron ladle either pure or coloured with a little red lead or vermilion powdered and stirred up with it The moulds and casts are made
in the same manner as with plaster of Paris only that the sulphur must be poured on the mould when hot and water instead of oil must be used to prevent adhesion Sulphur makes the best moulds for plaster casts and vice versa as similar substances can seldom be prevented by either water or oil from adhering in some degree to each other Plaster cannot be used twice that is old or spoilt casts cannot be powdered and again employed for the moment the material is wetted being a species of lime it is no longer plaster without being reburnt Another way of making casts of almost any colour is with a strong solution of isinglass it must be used when quite hot and it is so thin that a box exactly fitting the rim of the coin is re quired otherwise it will escape It may be coloured with saffron woad & c Very beautiful impressions may be taken by pouring melted wax upon the medal which comes off easily when the wax and metal are perfectly cold but any one attempting this had better try it first upon a halfpenny or other coin of small value Impressions may also be taken in wax which for this purpose should be rendered pliable by kneading it with the hand before the fire a little oil having been previously mixed with it When softened to about the consistence of putty lay it and press it close down on the coin the form of which will then be perfectly obtained The following is another mode of taking impressions Procure tin or lead foil as thin as possible place it on the coin and with a pin's head or any small smooth instrument work it into every part then take it off revert it into a shallow box and pour plaster into its concave side a durable plaster cast is thus obtained covered with tin foil which will resemble silver The young lady’s book: a manual of elegant recreations, exercises, and pursuits. (1829). United Kingdom: (n.p.).

Those interested in coins would no doubt have read books like Fosbroke, T. D. (1825). Encyclopaedia of Antiquities, and Elements of Archaeology, Classical and Mediaeval: In Two Volumes. United Kingdom: Nichols, which shares:

same time 6 MOULDS for casting Coins The greatest part of Egyptian brass and potin under the Emperors and coins of Antioch and other Greek colonies are cast in moulds but among the Romans Beauvais found only those of Posthumus The Encyclode dists however affirm that the greater part of ancient coins are cast and some struck But we may be generally assured that they have been all cast i e some cast into blanks to be afterwards struck and others cast immediately into moulds of perfect coins Small pieces of gold of the weight of the Imperial Aureus have been found cast in the form of beans or French beans These were blanks destined to be placed in this form between the two coins and the head type and letters to be supplied by the hammer The military chests seem to have been stored with blanks of this kind which were struck according to urgency The coins were brass and might be cast at least in one night as well as the moulds be speedily formed by means of puncheons of moveable letters engraved in relief Beauvais is also mistaken in supposing that the Ancients did not strike coins and medallions of bulk in brass Moulds of Roman money have been repeatedly found at Lyons and several places of the Continent and England With an account of some found near Thorpe on the Hill it is said that the art of counterfeiting Roman money was in vogue for 1500 years Thoresby de scribes the above moulds as having round the impression a rim about half the thick ness of the Roman silver penny in each of which is a little notch which being joined to the like nick in the next makes a round orifice to pour in the metal Each of these has either two heads or as many reverses so that placing one for example with
Alexander Severus's head on one side and his mother Julia Mammæa's on the other betwixt two pieces with reverses it completes both Accordingly one with heads and another with reverses are placed alternatim for a considerable length aud then luted over to keep the metal from running out A little ledge on either side the orifice con veys the metal into the long row of holes The paper on the subject in the Archæo logia supposes the moulds to be for the use of forgers and quotes largely a French Memoir which states that there was a small army of forgers in the time of Aurelian but these forgers were the actual moneyers of the state and the offence adulteration of the coin vitiatis pecuniis says Eutropius and it is very probable that these moulds were allowed or connived at by authority for the purpose of coining at convenience in various places As to the bad metal found it proves nothing for Caracalla did cor rupt the coin as others have done in all ages 1

While most references has this as particular occupation of gentlemen, it appears there was enough interest from ladies to establish it as a definitive era approved pastime for young women.

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