From: owner-scribes@castle.org (scribes digest) To: scribes-digest@castle.org Subject: scribes digest V2 #7 Reply-To: Sender: owner-scribes@castle.org Errors-To: owner-scribes@castle.org Precedence: bulk scribes digest Saturday, May 16 1998 Volume 02 : Number 007 In this issue: Re: [scribes]: Burnishing tools (was: Rubrication?? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 15 May 1998 16:37:34 -0700 From: "Thomas Brownwell" Subject: Re: [scribes]: Burnishing tools (was: Rubrication?? I wrote: >>would make the weight of a single leaf 0.54 grain (if there were no waste). An average modern gold leaf weighs about 0.20 troy grain, and a double weight gold leaf about 0.40. Presumably, therefore, Cennino's best gold was about<< and Mistress Techubah responded: >>I would question whether this is truly accurate, though. According to the Easy Leaf catalog, "double" weight gold is only 10% heavier than regular loose leaf. That's been true of all the gold dealers I've dealt with. Just because they're calling it double doesn't mean it really is (and they'd undoubtedly be charging twice the price for a book, rather than only $1 or two more since they charge by weight). Even when using double weight, you need to use at least 2 sheets in the same area to get any kindof thickness that you can burnish.<< I dug up my catalog from Easy Leaf, and indeed they claim that Double-weight leaf is only about 10% thicker than regular leaf. But this is not the reason that double leaf costs about 5% more than regular. The gold in the leaf is *not* the primary determinant in setting the cost. My intuition said check it out, so I have. If you like numbers, you'll like this: I just called Easy Leaf, and was told that 1000 sheets of 23.75 karat single-weight leaf weigh about 23 grams. This corresponds to a weight of 0.354 grains per sheet (15.43 grains per gram), certainly within the range given by Thompson above. Now, there are 480 grains in an ounce, so an ounce of gold would yield about 1370 sheets of leaf. I paid roughly $1.30 per sheet last month, so that an ounce of gold would cost me $1780. Conclusion: gold leaf is *not* sold by weight since the current cost of gold is about 1/4 that. The primary factor in determining its cost is the difficulty of producing it, which accounts for about 75% of the final cost of the leaf. Actually, I'm disappointed with the industry, but obviously I don't know how difficult it is to set up a processing plant. The thing that gets me is that they could *double* the thickness of the leaf without significantly raising the price, since gold that was twice as thick would undoubtedly require one or two fewer pass through the rollers, reducing the production cost while only doubling the raw materials cost. It's too bad they won't run leaf to medieval specs for all the professionals who restore or recreate artifacts. Oh well... If any of you have an inside track to a leaf manufacturer, we (meaning I) would like gold at 0.55 grains per sheet, or 870 sheets per ounce, or 36 grams per 1000 sheets. Just in case... - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Douglas Brownell AKA Thomas Brownwell, Calligrapher, brownwell@home.com Dancer,Silversmith,Singer,Cobbler,... San Diego, CA Barony of Calafia, Caid The 4 elements = good physics stuff:: Or,a fountain, a chief rayonny gules. Goutte enough herald:: (Fieldless) A goutte barry wavy azure and argent. ------------------------------ End of scribes digest V2 #7 ***************************