Gold Pressed Latinum
Latinum – the ultimate Ferengi currency in the Star Trek universe.
As discovered in the sixth season Episode of DS9 “Who mourns for Morn?“, the truly valuable component of gold pressed Latinum isn’t the outer shell, but the inside which is filled with a silvery liquid – similar to quicksilver in appearance – that is the Latinum itself. The outside is composed of gold, which is considered worthless since it can be easily replicated.
There are several different sizes of gold pressed Latinum: slips, strips, bars and bricks. Here’s how they relate to each other:
100 slips = 1 strip
20 strips = 1 bar
1 bar = 2000 slips
1 brick = ?
However, specifications made in the episodes sometimes contradict each other. Quark for example states in one episode that one bar and 25 strips is less than 2 bars although one bar is supposed to be as valuable as 20 strips.
For more information regarding Latinum and its value visit Memory Alpha.
I have one piece of each size of latinum in my collection except a large brick. I also have a piece that is supposed to be a kind of “in between” size between a strip and a bar which is supposedly called an “ingot”. I don’t know however if this is the correct name from the Star Trek universe.
Here are some pictures:
Left to right: 1 Bar, 1 “Ingot”, 1 Strip and 1 Slip of Latinum.
A lot of money…
For 17 strips of latinum (almost 1 bar), you can buy a suit in Garak’s shop.
Cast from resin and painted with a beautiful golden color.
Every Ferengi’s dream…
Solid on the outside, liquid in the inside.
Those Ferengi letters are supposed to be names of the film crew members.
5 Responses to “Gold Pressed Latinum”
The nerdiest shidduch resume I have ever recieved on: April 10th, 2011 at 05:00
[…] insistence on using gold pressed latinum(*?) which cannot be replicated, as their unit of currency. http://www.trekprops.de/gold-pressed-latinum” That tells you what kind of person I am and what kinds of people are my […]
A_Nonamus on: November 9th, 2011 at 13:29
The symbols on the props are not names of the film crew members. They are names of the workers at the prop house (possibly Prop’er Effects ?) where the props were made. If you turn the props sideways with the big end to the right and use a bit of imagination, you can read the names:
Bar = DANA | BEAR
Ingot = MIKE | SHAWNA
Strip = MAX | SCOTT
On a different style of Slip, the names are the same as the Strip (the prop was simply a cut-down copy of the Strip). I don’t have a Slip like yours and your photos are not clear enough for me to tell whose names are on your style of Slip. The Brick props were not decorated as the smaller values were, so they have no names on them.
trekprops.de on: November 25th, 2011 at 20:40
Thanks for clearing that up!
A_Nonamus on: April 28th, 2012 at 06:50
Update: Doing some further research after making the above post, I have learned the besides the two styles of Slip props I already mentioned, there are also at least two styles of Brick. I don’t remember the episode(s) in which they appeared, but apparently large stacks of Bricks were shown in vault(s) or similar scenes. Most of the Brick props used were uncarved blocks of wood simply sawn to shape and painted gold (“background” props, as they’re known in the trade) as I wrote above, but the topmost (“hero” props) were resin castings decorated with carvings in a similar manner to the other sizes. I have no photos of any hero Brick props to tell what names are on them.
Here are the people whose names appear on the latinum props I know about:
DANA is Dana Ginsberg.
BEAR is “Bear” Burge.
MIKE is Michael Moore.
SHAWNA is Shawna Hogan-Moore.
MAX is Max Cervantes.
SCOTT is Scott Brodeen.
I’ve met Scott Brodeen in person a few times. He’s a very nice and generous fellow. At a Star Trek convention, when I was showing him one large, rare ST:TNG prop from my collection that was a poor quality casting, he told me it was in fact an unknown Nth-generation copy of an original. But he softened that blow by _giving_ me unassembled original castings of most of the parts for a later version of the same prop (re-sculpted by him, used many times in ST:DS9)!
Michael parks on: July 17th, 2015 at 23:48
When do you expect to complete the gal set and do you have a price yet
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