DAVISSONS AUCTION 41 ELECTROTYPES

High quality replicas of historic coins occupy an interesting niche in the hobby. There's something egalitarian about anyone being able to buy a convincing approximation of a dekadrachm, for instance, but as replicas become more convincing their potential for deception (whether originally intended for such or not) begins to tarnish the experience. That is, unless, the examples were simultaneously made to the highest specifications and in a manner that leaves them impossible to confuse with the real thing.

 

Our Greek electrotypes come from a select group of Robert Ready British Museum pieces. In the late 1850's the British Museum hired the seal-maker, Robert Ready, to produce copies of some of the finest coins in the British Museum collection. With an electrotyping technique they had perfected Ready and his sons produced exact replicas of the actual museum coins. They were produced in two parts, an obverse and a reverse. We acquired a select group of some of the most beautiful and important pieces they produced. All of these were direct copper casts of the actual coins and all have been gilt to illustrate the color of the actual coin, silver or gold. The Greek pieces are all in two separate halves, as issued, so that they can be displayed with both sides visible simultaneously.

 

The second is a remarkable group of British Museum Anglo-Saxon and English hammered electrotypes.

These double-thick electrotypes have not had the prominence of the series of Greek coin electros we have been offering. But they are direct copies of pieces in the British Museum and many can be seen in the plates of the the two BMC volumes issued in 1887 and 1893: Keary & Poole, A Catalogue of English Coins in the British Museum, Anglo-Saxon Series Volume I. and Grueber & Keary, A Catalogue of English Coins in the British Museum, Anglo-Saxon Series Volume II.

These copies were used for the production of the reference that has become the standard for English coins, the Spink Standard Catalog. (Prior to 1998 the publication was known as the Seaby Standard Catalog.) The pieces offered here are the actual pieces photographed for all the annual catalogs from the small format 15th edition in 1976 until the major revision in the 42nd edition 2007, when the catalog changed from black and white to color. (Prior to the larger size publications begun with the 16th edition in 1978, the earlier editions beginning in 1962 were smaller 5 by 7 ½ inch books. Earlier still, prior to 1962 the publications were larger and thinner with drawings rather than photographs illustrating the coins.)

They are apparently extremely rare if not generally unique. I have seen a very few examples of other types in this format being offered but never a duplication of any offered here.

For more information, see:
https://davcoin.com/

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
DAVISSONS AUCTION 41 GREEK, JUDAIC SELECTIONS (https://www.coinbooks.org/v25/esylum_v25n09a27.html)

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