I came across this Severus Alexander coin in a lot of cleaners. After removing the outer layer of dirt, I thought it was a denarius (exciting!) that was heavily encrusted in copper based corrosion. There was a hint of silver buried within a mass of red encrustation. After removing some of the corrosion using picks and weak acid I started to wonder if it was a fouree and perhaps that was the source of the copper corrosion deposits. Maybe a stash of fourees were buried together and corroded all over each other? In several places you can see the copper core showing through, verifying that it is a fouree. It took quite an effort to free this much of the coin from the corrosion. There is more corrosion on top of the silver but I am afraid to remove it for fear of damaging the rest of the coin. The silver looks shinier and the copper looks as red as a new penny in hand. Hard to capture in a picture but it looks really cool this way. The portrait style is a little cartoonish looking maybe because the dies are unofficial copies? This fouree appears to be a copy of this common denarius, although the reverse legend is not quite the same (TRP VI - III not X - I): Severus Alexander AR Denarius. Rome, AD 230. IMP SEV ALEXAND AVG, laureate head right, slight drapery on left shoulder / P M TR P X-I - COS III P P, Sol standing right, head left, raising right hand and holding globe. RIC 112, RSC 427. See: https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=3051603 Finding coins that are out of the ordinary is what makes the tedium and effort of cleaning worth doing. Post your cleaning stories and results. John
here's my weirdest cleaning find...I can only find my obverse pic currently.... it's a modern fantasy byzantine coin that was thrown in with a bunch of LRB. I suppose I paid about 1.50 USD for it...which is about what I would have paid for it if I found it at a coins show or something, so I wasn't upset.
Do you suppose the seller was just trying to pad the number of coins in the group by including that modern piece? Did they completely cover it with dirt so you could not see what it was right away?
Cool find!! I haven't gone the cleaning route in quite a while but some of mine could use some help and virtually all I purchased from 'uncleaned lots' in the past were poor grade or a tad better---basically 'belt-buckle' material. I used to love cleaning and attempting to restore coins---the thrill of the hunt and what you might find always seemed way cool. @YOC. @Alegandron and @Pishpash should have a few to contribute.....
When I first started cleaning, I made a few mistakes. One was a Severus Alexander "silver" ant. It went into warm olive oil and lemon juice. It came out pink
theodosius, it was partially covered with dirt, but it was prominently place in the picture and stood out like a sore thumb...it's about 25 mm so much larger than the rest of the low grade LRB, and you could tell under the dirt it was "byzantish" to some extent.
Nice job on the cleaning @Theodosius ! I just have no patience to do that. However it is fantastic what is hidden underneath! I only have one coin that I have cleaned, and @YOC did an excellent job on it. It was "discovered" that my coin had the original silvering from the time of mintage. Looks great! ORIGINAL GREEN Postumus: AFTER the YOC MAGIC: RI Postumus 259-268 BCE Antoninianus Cologne Providentia The original silvering on the Ant shines through! Way cool! I honestly thought the original silvering minted at this time had been eaten away by the green patina.
