Frame for Displaying Both Sides of Coins

Holding Coins between Glasses

It is quite important for coin collectors to have some convenient way to show both sides of coins without touching or handling them. If the collection consists of only a few coins, they can be arranged in a frame as shown in Fig. 1. The frame is made of a heavy card, A, Fig. 2, the same thickness as the coins, and covered over on each side with a piece of glass, B. Holes are cut in the card to receive the coins C. The frame is placed on bearings so it may be turned over to examine both sides. If there is a large collection of coins, the frame can be made in the same manner and used as drawers in a cabinet. The drawers can be taken out and turned over.

Contributed by C. Purdy, Ghent, O.


How to Make Lantern Slides

A great many persons who have magic lanterns do not use them very much, for after the slides have been shown a few times, they become uninteresting, and buying new ones or even making them from photographic negatives is expensive. But by the method described in the following paragraph anyone can make new and interesting slides in a few minutes' time and at a very small cost.

Secure a number of glass plates of the size that will fit your lantern and clean them on both sides. Dissolve a piece of white rosin in a half-pint of gasoline and flow it over one side of the plates and allow to dry. Place the dried plate over a picture you wish to reproduce and draw the outline upon the thin film. A lead pencil, pen and ink or colored crayons can be used, as the rosin and gasoline give a surface that can be written upon as easily as upon paper. When the slide becomes uninteresting it can be cleaned with a little clear gasoline and used again to make another slide. A slide can be made in this way in five minutes and an interesting outline picture in even less time than that.

This solution also makes an ideal retouching varnish for negatives.