#electrotype

Science Saturday

This Saturday we are featuring wood engravings from the 1880 physics textbook Elements of Natural Philosophy, published by Sheldon and Co. of New York. The textbook includes nearly 400 wood engraving illustrations. The text and wood-engraved were reproduced via electrotype by the printing firm Smith & McDougal.

Elements of Natural Philosophy was written by Elroy McKendree Avery, a high school principal originally from Michigan. Avery later relocated to Cleveland and served on the Cleveland City Council and as an Ohio State Senator from 1893 to 1897. He also worked as a publisher in Cleveland before retiring to Florida. He brought with him over a thousand books that he used to found the Avery Library and Historical Society, now the New Port Richey Public Library.

The publisher, Smith Sheldon, after a successful career in dry goods in upstate New York, relocated to New York City to organize a publishing house. Purchasing a stake in an established publisher, Sheldon, Lamport, and Blakeman was established in the spring of 1854. Lamport retired two years later, and Blakeman left the firm in 1859. Smith Sheldon, with his son Isaac, continued to publish as Sheldon and Co. until 1897. Early acquisitions of book lists and plates from several failing firms established Sheldon and Co. as a well-known publisher of school texts, juvenile series, and religious books.

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Gold electrotype, ANS # 0000.999.56003, the obverse of Gold double dinara, Bactria, AD 113 - AD 127. ANS # 1949.66.2

Since there has been some discussion on the blog about reproductions and forgeries, I thought we might look at something along those lines today. Fittingly, then, the object we will be looking at is not a coin. It is an electrotype, an exact copy of the obverse of a coin produced in gold from a process invented in 19th century Russia.

The original coin, shown last, is a Kushan coin, from the reign of Vima Kadphises, dated to the middle of the second century. It reads ΒΑCΙΛΕΥC OO-HMO KAΔΦICHC and shows the king helmeted, on clouds, with a Tamgha behind his head. It is clear the the coins are the same, given the distinctive notch at the bottom right of the flan. 

The electrotype process creates a perfect mold of the object and then, using electricity, activates molecules between two surfaces to create a perfect copy. For those who are interested, an video of the process is available here.