Ok, this one seems fake to me because of the way it feels. It feels rough and if you look at the parts that are normally smoth they are rough like metal. Am I in the ball park or are some coins just like this due to cleaning? Its definitely different than any of the 10-12 silver coins I have bought so far.
Not so sure from here that it isn't genuine. Lots of things can happen to coin surfaces. People here who know Way more than me are going to have a much better idea; they might want to know the coin's weight.
That was my only thought that maybe a acid cleaning would make it look/feel that way. I bought it 2 weeks ago and it just arrived. I think I got the feeling on which sellers I would buy off of ebay and I did in the FAQ thread one person posted on another of my threads, a auction place and it has coin lots (9-10-14-20) coins that are decent priced but I havent seen final price, i know last min/second can make a world of difference of price paid.
Is weight a big factor? I imagine they didnt have a way to keep most all coins around same weight exactly
Holy cow, while reading other peoples threads I seen another coin with the same looking surface of this one I posted. It came from a auction house bid. I am learning new stuff daily for sure,
You're dead on. People here who know that much more than me have gone into this, in serious depth. But average weights will give you a ballpark; if something is as much as, let's say, 1 or two grams less than the average, it's like, 'Houston: We've Got a Problem.' ...In any case like that, the coin is as likely to be an unofficial ('Barbarous') copy, of one kind or another, as a fake. But it takes the kind of eye that you really only get with practice to even begin to tell the difference.
Nope, @Everett Guy, you're Just That Good!!!! Your learning curve is truly amazing. You are Well On Your Way.
It seems authentic to me, just very rough after harsh cleaning or 1800 years in a very acidic soil condition.
The reason your coin might seem different from your other silver coins is that this coin is not really silver. It's billon--a mix of bronze and silver. And it's Nero's fault. All through the Republican era and into the beginning of the imperial area, the purity of the silver in official Roman denarii was strictly maintained. Once Nero reduced the fineness of the silver in the denarius, he broke the taboo, and subsequent emperors began meddling with it to--in theory--increase the buying power of their own silver hoards, further enriching themselves. By the time Severus Alexander came along 200 years later, the amount of silver in a "silver" denarius had dropped to around 30%. (Ballpark. Other members of this group can give you more precise details.) It is unfortunate that we still refer to these as silver denarii, as billon denarii would be more accurate, but old habits are hard to break. Whenever someone familiar with true silver denarii gets one of these for the first time, they immediately assume that they have been ripped off. In a way they have been, but not by the seller of the coin. They were ripped off by whichever emperor issued issued the coin. Because the amount of silver is so low in these SA denarii, the weight of the coin wasn't particularly important to the issuing authority, and their weights varied widely. Furthermore, bronze is much more sensitive to acid than silver, so if your coin has spent the past 1800 years buried in acidic soil, the bronze will leach out of the coin, further reducing the weight and leaving the rough, unsettling silver surface behind. Is your coin fake? No. It is most likely genuine. Did you get cheated? Absolutely, but good luck doing anything about it. The person who cheated you has been dead for almost 1800 years.
gsimonel covered this well but I would add that beginners are twice cheated by the sellers who lead them to think that a coin 1800 years old needs to look like that. While being poor metal and being buried in harsh soil certainly hurts, the harsh cleaning of heavily encrusted coins is responsible for most of the ugliness we see today. Sure your coin has rather little wear from circulation but the terrible surfaces make the coin worth a fraction of a similar coin with smooth surfaces. My coins below are far from a perfect specimens but show what I would term average 'normal' surfaces. The market value differences between your coin, mine and the coins still having 'as struck' surfaces are huge. I would suggest you consider this factor when planning future purchases.
@gsimonel I just read up on this last night. Its like collecting eairly American coins for better silver content an later stuff is still collectible but not as attractive to silver collectors. The story is facanating to me like a true romam soap opera....I am surprized every time I read as much as I can and more surprized that the bronze or silver bronze mix coins have faired so well in all these years. I am.that guy who collects silver but with roman coins I have already bought 3 bronze coins to tune into the roman soap opera...
Yes...i am glad I got the coin, but will def look at cleaned coins different. I am learning so much here I consider my self almost notva newbie...lol
I agree with everything you wrote, Doug, but I don't think this applies to the OP. There are many of these billion denarii and antoniniani that have their surfaces ravished just from lying in acidic soils for so long. Of course, neither of us can say with certainty what caused the rough surface of the OP, but there's no reason to assume that this coin was ruined by harsh cleaning. It can happen naturally.
