Unknown Roman Set (5 coins bought together)

(I'm pasting this same intro into all my first posts to level set. Thanks for your patience)
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Hello all,


I'm new here. Please be kind

So I recently found out about auctions for ancient coins and artifacts. I've mostly just been buying things that feel interesting or give me a good feeling. I have always loved archeology and history, and also been a minor coin collector since childhood.

I'm not really collecting as an investment, more as a form of time travel. I just love touching and holding these objects and imagining who may have held it when it was newer. Having some kind of historical context to these objects is what I am mostly after.

Also, I am strongly interested in attempting to restore everything to as close to what it looked like when it was new(er). I don't want to destroy anything, but I also do want to be "aggressive" in the restoration efforts in an attempt to do so.

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So with this unknown coin set ($132) I'm looking for

1. Any info you all might think about it.
a. There was nothing in the auction description
b. There is good face detail on all of them
c. One of them seems to be gold in color, so is that maybe brass or something else?
d. Any idea more info on these?
e. Should I upload more/better photos?
2. Best advice to attempt to restore it.
a. Is there any hope at bringing out any further details?
b. How do I deal with brass vs bronze?


Thank you for reading and I really do appreciate your time and look forward to learning more and being part of your community.

All the best,
JJ Walker

 

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Hi, welcome to the forum. Please note that each new post moves other posts one place down. You’ve just posted five posts:


… thus moving five posts. A bit spammy.

 

I have quite a few items I am interested in posting. Is there some sort of quota or time limit I should be aware of? Everything I'm posting seems to be quite on topic, no? If not, please tell me where I should post better. I'm not selling anything so I didn't expect to be flagged as spam.

 

No worries about the topic. But posting many posts is somewhat frowned upon, as it moves active threads to page 2 (where nobody really looks).

 

Not everything has to be posted in one day. Two or three every 24 hours is better etiquette.

 

It’s like if you walk into a bar and just start randomly talking about five subjects with everyone simultaneously (or if related put them in the same thread). I usually try and limit myself to one active post. There are some who are much more prolific posters but you’ll see they aren’t starting multiple threads but may be getting responses.

I think someone already tried to aggressively clean these coins and they may not be good candidates. For identification purposes dimensions and weight may help as would some better photos.

 

Ah ok. That makes sense. I think what I'll do then is try to limit my new topics to like 4 per day. It'll just take me about 6 days to finish. I don't want to kill other people's topics.

BTW, is there any possibility to post artifacts? I have a bronze ring and bronze (dagger?) handle that I'd love to get people's opinion on.

 

Maybe 2 or 3 instead?

Artifacts are ok.

 

Ok so here are these items better (?) photos and measurements.

2.9cm, 16.05g
|
3cm, 24.9g



3cm, 28.6g
|
2.8cm, 21.5g



3.5cm, 27.1g
|
3cm, 27.6g

 

Those are nice. Some are a bit over cleaned but cool. I like the Commodus especially

 

Thank you! Which one is the Commodus? And any advice to restore them any further?

 

You will assuredly destroy and regret if you are "aggressive" cleaning your coins.
Cleaning coins waaaay more often than not just ends up showing off the holes and discoloration underneath.
I recommend you don't do a thing to any of the coins you've listed.
Ps, like everyone else has already stated, 1 to maybe 2 posts a day will get you a lot more help.
When folks spam the board I skip right over them, but saw that you were new. I made them same error when I joined the CT club.
Pss, you'll have a lot of fun learning about and looking up your coins by using the search function here: https://www.acsearch.info/home.html

 

Thank you for this. I'll keep this in mind when my brain starts telling me to clean these. I had the thought to take any non-fake, but also unattributable, coins and make a treasure hunt for the kids. I guess you may say this whole set falls into that category?

 

To me the most interesting is the Smyrna provincial. It is the one with Greek legends that says ΣΜΥΡ in the reverse field. I am not 100% sure of the ruler and did not put in the effort needed to get that way. Someone here can. Overall the coins seem decent but several have surfaces that will be more likely to get worse than better if cleaned in the wrong way. Donna said 2-3 a day. I suggest one coin per thread and wait for that answer before posting another whether that is an hour later or a whole day. We have members from all over the globe and some of us sleep rather than wait up for a new post. Good photos carefully presented with what you see (suggesting you are making an effort) is more likely to get a response that a shotgun request.

 

That one kinda looks like Domitian to me

 

Its the first one in the batch of pictures.
It even says MCOMMODVS... on the obverse.

 

Thanks for that pointer. I really need to learn to clean in the right way.

Makes sense to me.

 

I'll start digging with these clues. Thank you.

That's great. Thanks. Do you know of any OCR that would help me to pull out the letters? I'm just starting to try to recognize them but my eyes cross.

 

first pic: Commodus top and Septimius Severus bottom, second pic: Domitian top and Antoninus Pius bottom; third pic: Augustus or Drusus ? top and Faustina II bottom.

 

Holy cow! That was impressive! Thank you! Time to google.