Aurelius And The Army Leaves Rome To Fight The Germanic War

ACTION 1: Create a Replica
Another member mentioned making foil impressions of their coins before selling them. I tried this and found that it worked very well but would be quicker with a medium behind it to put equal force over the coin - I used blu-tack but could only make a negative. My first thought, of course, was roman chocolate coins. My second was could I cast a little replica using this?

Im getting oven hardening clay for this - fire a COPY stamped negative and then use the hardened negative to make copies of the coin. I could also try to become a die cutter - try and put the details back in. If successful, ill paint one in some brass coloured paint and 1 in red and black to mimic the coin as it is now.

ACTION 2: Coat it.
Perhaps using wax or perhaps seal it into acrylic. That way, even if it crumbles and dissolves, the coin will stay in shape. Of course, this would be permanent. Resin may be the best bet at perpetual preservation.


I know a lot of you will think 'why all this for such a beaten up old thing?'. My response to that is: this is the rarest coin I own and it is a very nice coin, in my humble opinion. If any of these methods work - they can be applied to other coins too. And, if I can make detailed copies (doubtful, but still possible) then I can attempt to make pewter copies too. Plated, these would be just like the coin when it was circulated in roman times.

now that's interesting. I think i'd go with "seal it up".

Thats a very nice uncleaned lot find!

I'm glad I was wrong!

This one has really got me confused now - I've noticed that all examples I have come across online (I reckon 4) have all been from the same die. Yet mine has not matched any of them...

I do believe it is Aurelius, despite any evidence of the bust, as he is the only guy who issued this design in brass. There is a similar piece in gold.

So why cant I find another example?

If you are going to cast I would recomend you look into the rubber that is used in the jewellery trade.

First you would attach a sprue (In this case since you dont want to solder on the coin so I would use a piece of dowling rod and cut a notch in the end for the coin to sit in...maybe split the wood put the coin in the split and wire the dowling closed.)

Then you put in the liquid rubber and wait for it to set. Very carefully you ue a scapel around the edge of the coin to split the rubber apart. When you pull the half apart it will leave no residue on the coin.

Now you use the rubber to create a wax coin (can be done multiple times if you wish to reuse the rubber)

The wax coins can have their sprues joined together to create a tree. They are then inverted and lowered into plaster of paris.

When the plaster has set you heat it up and the wax runs out of it (maybe this wax is super liquidy, it not candle wax that they use)

Next you would put the plaster on a gyroscope and pour the metal into it as it spins. You would get a very professional result. If the coins aren't too thin and the sprues are decent sized you can probably cast without a gyroscope.

To remove the coins simply strike it with a hammer :P