Denarius, 193 AD - I had to try it......

Among my other hobbies is collecting ancient coins. The numismatic Yahoo list Moneta-L has recently had a lot of traffic regarding a coin dealer who now offers (in addition to his regular line of old coins) photographic prints made by an 'photographic artist' using rather unspectacular ancient coins as subjects. The photos show small sections of worn and corroded coins so the 'art' involved here is credited to the eye of the photographer rather than to the ancient die cutter. I take photos of coins but have no pretense that their beauty is my doing since I am only recording the work of the artist of the distant past.

There has been quite a difference of opinion on Moneta-L as to whether this is fine art or something a bit more ridiculous. Part of the problem might be that the (admittedly large) prints are being offered for well over 100 times the market value of the subjects. I have no problem with that concept (a good photo of trash can be considerably more interesting than the trash itself) but the value (artistic or monetary) of these is way over my head.

The questions: What do you photographic artists think of Mr. Sack's images? If you were seeking a large print to decorate your space would you consider one of these? Does this make you want to run out and shoot parts of coins? (I did and failed as shown on this page.) If one of his images does more for you than the others: Which? Why?

This is not a new thing for Mr. Sack, the photographer. He has photographed other old objects in some degree of deterioration. I find more interest in some of them than in the coins but I'm not exactly sure why.

Google searching his name even turned up a weblog reference calling his work "immensely beautiful" comparing them to normal coin photography. The link on this page under 'mentioned here earlier' uses one of my photos and eventually leads to my article on the coin photography. I had no previous knowledge that my photo was used for this purpose but, while my work was not called beautiful, at least he said nothing bad about it.