Greetings. This Roman coin has just been quickly cleaned. I think it can be identified now. Could you please assist me in the coin ID, especially that the reverse seems very meaningful. Perhaps..
Valentinian II, something like this (with ΑΝΤΓ in ex.)... http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=230025
Just curious, how did you clean it? I try to clean the areas in the low points, it appears you massively scraped off all of the high points, removing most of the detail. You left yourself a coin that is VG at best.
Less than a week ago I posted this one: I don't specialize in coins of RIC volume IX but liked this Valentinian II. At 24mm diameter it is large even for an AE2. The portrait is unusual for this very young ruler who usually looks cuter than here. That nose reminds me of Nerva. Alexandria mint often has a distinctive style and good workmanship. As an added bonus, I likes the detail on the reverse captive. Read more: http://www.cointalk.com/t227403/#ixzz2SkM6wKD0 Mine is Alexandria mint while this latest one is Antioch. I also introduced a term in another thread 'brick cleaned' which seems to apply here. See how easy it makes the coin to read with all that nice contrast between the letters and fields? Yes, it can be identified now but did we really need to ID it bad enough to murder it in the process?
Man, I love that term => Yup, I'm very glad that "most" of my coins escaped the ol' "brick cleaning" test!! => However 7Calbrey, I must admit that I still think that your coin has very cool eye-appeal!! ... I'm kinda lovin' it!! :high5:
Thanks to all of you, friends. I thought that the reverse was a soccer game. I mistook the globe for a ball. Ha .. Ha . May God forgive me because I used emery paper to clean the coin. By the way, does the Greek letter Gamma after ANT on the reverse refers to the third year of reign? Is it worth to send this coin to a jeweller to clean it properly? Charles
For the love of all things holy....don't use sand paper or emory board to clean your coins! Or steel wool, a wire brush or any other abrasives. I suppose they're your coins, and you can do what you like, but you are ruining them and destroying what value they may have when you clean them that way. For ancients, many recommend bathing the coins in olive oil for an extended period, then gently brushing them using a toothbrush to remove some of the debris and encrustation that's built up over the centuries. It's a lengthy process that requires patience. But in the end you may get a coin with close to original surfaces, as opposed to a coin which has had the devices scraped off it.
Thanks RB for the advice. What if olive oil and a toothbrush do not clean and unveil the coin enough? Charles
Just gotta keep at it. Cleaning ancients properly takes a lot of patience, because many times it can take a while.
7Calbrey => hey, welcome to the world of ancients ... Unlike modern coin-collecting, sometimes getting to bare-metal and having the coin look "blast-white" is not the ultimate goal!! ... a 2000 year old brown-green patina covering on-top of the underlying brass is considered "natural" and therefore is the accepted "target/goal" ... Ummmm sadly in your case, buffing the coin with emery cloth in order to reveal the underlying brass has basically butchered this poor coin!! (*sigh*) ... oh well, lesson learned, right? NOTE => I do not clean coins myself and therefore I am definitely "not" claiming to be a coin cleaning expert ... but I do suggest that you sit-back and check-out several threads to discover what the ultimate ancient coin goal is all about ... I'm positive that you'll discover that although ancient coins are pretty much always "cleaned to some degree", they are not aggressively altered in order to produce a desired result (in other words => scraping, smoothing and/or tooling are all considered to be very bad practices and will all result in your coin being worth less, rather than it being worth more ... which I'm sure is your desired outcome, correct?) => again => "welcome" .... it is always nice having new ancient collectors join the ranks (eh-heh-heh) Cheers :high5: :hug:
Thanks Bing ... I was still altering (make spelling, grammar and logic corrections) ... you are correct in stating that most coins have been cleaned in some manner (Note => I had originally used the words "occasionally cleaned") ... thanks ol' friend
Hmmmm? ... yah, it is quite interesting that most AE coins never actually look like they're made of brass (they are always green, brown, black, etc, patina) ... and therefore I was kinda interested/happy that 7Calbrey had actually buffed that coin down to the brass metal!! => he "brick cleaned" that puppy good!! (thanks dawg => you were kinda like an ancient banker, cutting into the metal to see what was underneath!! ... I thought that was very cool/intesting .... ummm, but better you, than me!!)
exactly, JA ... what did some of our coins actually look like on Day #1? Ummm seriously => man, she must have been a beauty, eh?
7C...use a toothpick or needle to gently pick into the dirt, toothbrush just to flake off the loose stuff after picking, stick it back in water or olive oil, take it again in a week/month, waterever you want...do it again...repeat utnil happy.
The Aurelius year 14 is a beautiful coin even as worn as it is. Many of these Alexandrian drachms are very worn and must have remained in circulation for years. For the record, I am not generally a fan of olive oil for cleaning and will ask those who have really good looking coins cleaned that way to show them. Most I have seen are rough. I prefer distilled water but it probably depends on what kind of 'dirt' is on the coin. There is really nothing to be done for the OP coin. Once it has been sanded, it can not be undone.
