Silver plated bronze Roman Officer helmet Legate Consul Tribune Praetorian

Description: Silver plated bronze Roman Officer helmet for a Legate, Consul, Tribune, Prefect of Praetorian with a Purple crest. The ancient source of purple came from the city of Tyre. The great looking black feather crest is nice and full with over 500 individual feathers in it. Tyrian purple, also known as Phoenician purple, Tyrian red, royal purple, imperial purple or imperial dye, is a bromine-containing reddish -purple natural dye. It is a secretion produced by several species of predatory sea snails in the family Muricidae, rock snails originally known by the name Murex. In ancient times, extracting this dye involved tens of thousands of snails and substantial labor, and as a result, the dye was highly valued. Not only did the Kings of Europe use purple dye by Alexander the great was said to have worn a purple cape and this same purple was used in a thin strip on a tunic or toga to represent a Roman of the Equestrian Class and a wide strip of purple on his tunic or toga represented a Roman of Senatorial Rank. There were five Equestrian Tribunes and one senatorial Tribune attached to each legion with the Legatus (Legate) himself being of Senatorial rank. For those that who are not aware of American foundry cost these day, any bronze foundry in America would charge you $5,000 just to make one copy of all of the pieces in this helmet and then you would have to grind, sand, buff, polish, drill, hinge, rivet all of the pieces and then plate all of the pieces in silver costing another $400 and then you can try making your own feathered crest with over 500 feathers in it just for fun. I can make you a white Roman column wood and resin helmet stand for $49 extra. When I used to gold plate helmets, gold was at $325 an ounce. It has been around $1,350 an ounce now for many years and those $325 days will never return. Some customers still like the gold look. The problem with gold paints are that they looks like gold paint and not gold metal. Brass plating is another alternative but even that cost me over $500 just to plate one helmet and that's with me driving all over kingdom come to get it done and then to pick it up and then I am totally dependent on when they can fit me in. I would have to charge an extra $600+ on top of the price of the helmet just to make it worth my while to even mess with as an option for a customer. I have been experimenting with different types of gold paints as well as gold powders and even wax based gold gilding powders. I have also tried gold leafing with real gold leaf and gold foil but that is a nightmare to work with and it always ends up looking crappy. The way that seems to have worked the best is when I have aged or antiqued a helmet. Putting a darkening agent in the recesses and then exposing the gold around that gave the effect of real gold. The problem with that is that I had to try and convince the customer to get his helmet aged or antiqued and some just did not like that effect or look. I then got a good mix of gold powder and a hard wax that I could soften up and then apply onto the helmet. I would then let it dry hard over night and come back the next day and puff the now hard gold wax up. This leaves a nice metallic gold shine but if you handle the helmet enough you will start seeing gold on areas of your hands. For this reason I had to reserve the use of gold wax to only minor areas. Two other golds of note are one called Hot Shot that is close to $30 for a tiny can of it but it is made to last long as it is made for sign painters. It is also hard to find. The good thing about it is that it stays on metal really well but the gold color is not that metallic looking for my liking. My testing and mixing finally paid off with a great looking real gold plate looking paint. Believe me, none of the gold paints out there that say gold plate on them look like real gold plate. I worked with real gold plate for two decades and I know what to look for. However even real gold plate can look different depending on if I plated gold on top of copper or bronze metal which were darker shades or plated gold on top of nickel or silver metal which are lighter shades. Well I have finally got it right as far as paint mixtures are concerned and I can now produce a real gold looking finish on my helmets. Only problem with it is that it is a weaker bonding paint and does not attach well onto metal surfaces so that it scratches off easily. Well, I have finally come to what I believe is the final answer. The helmet will be made first and all of it parts except for the crest. I will then use the Hot Shot gold paint to paint the entire helmet but in this case to really act as a boding agent in between the metal helmet and gold finish that I want it to look like. It takes 24 hours for the gold Hot Shot paint to dry but after one hour I put a second coat of gold Hot Shot paint on it while the first one is tacky. Then one hour after the second coat has been drying, I will put on my new real gold looking metal paint which will adhere better to the second coat while it is still tacky as well. Then twenty four hours later, I will put a second coat of my real gold looking paint mixture on the helmet and let that dry another 24 hours. Yes, I have used many different gold paints in brush on liquid forms and many different spray or types and as well gold wax applications or gold foil applications on my cold cast piece's. These were made out of urethane but they were sold as cold cast and not sold as 100% real metal pieces so there was never no reason to try and make them look like real gold plating. I have finally gotten to a place where I feel I can replicate real gold metal plating with paint after doing this for over 40 years. If this sounds of interest the additional cost is $198.

Price: 1489 USD

Location: Houston, Texas

End Time: 2024-01-13T14:52:39.000Z

Shipping Cost: N/A USD