The next coin i want to post from last night Club meeting is from the Byzantine Empire..with the new changes, i thought i would post this 2nd to make sure i got all the bugs out.. Byzantine Empire Romanus lV Diogenes AD. 1068- 1071 AV Histamenon ( Trachy)..Scyphate Ob.Michael Vll in center Costantius on left, Andronicus on right.. Rev. Chris Jesus, center standing on footstool, wearing Nimbus Cross. Crowning Romanus left, Eudocia on right, wearing loros and holing cross on Globe between them. IC on left and XC on right. Mint Constantinople.. 28mm x 4.43g. ( Master Anoob, wildwinds logs this as Histamenon as well as the Mchael Vll in my Avatar.)
Just want to add to this, i purchase a while back some verdi care from Wizard coin supply( plug), we had a thread on its wonderful helps on BD,( Bronze disease). well i also bought some Gold and Silver test kit. In photo one i used 14kt, which had no effect on the two new Histamenon coins, so i went to the 22kt, pic #2 which dissolved the gold after a few minutes. Pic three is my 22kt, 12kt and silver test. So if this is right the gold in these should be pretty good, please comment on this test... 14kt test... 22kt. test..
so Eng. what test told you which karat gold it was and what did it turn out to be ? does it bubble desolve. what does the test do to in order for you to determine which karat gold it is ???
spirityoda, i only saw this done at a jeweler. So i bought 12kt acid and 22kt acid, silver acid, rubbed some line's on the black stone, as you see in the pic each coin had a few lines, just one drop and cross the lines. wait a couple minutes in pic #1 the acid didn't melt the gold off. So i cleaned the stone off with a paper towel and a little water. ran a few lines again and went to 22kt acid which started to melt the gold lines off the stone, no bubbles, did see some smoke, i would say it was 18 to 20kt.,what i understand the purer the gold or silver, the higher the acid content you would need..i'm no expert, but i would be careful with this. This is acid and could rune most anything it got on... Any input would be great...
Well Eng, I merely looked-up the strategy associated with testing gold coins and discovered several articles describing exactly what you just described in your previous post, so I am assuming that you did exactly what several other people have claimed is the correct method ... so, well done!! Ummm, but I'm also thinking => why did you decide to test your coin for gold content/percent? ... were you unsure if the coin was authentic, or were you merely curious about the gold percentage?
Steve, i wasn't so much worried about it being authentic, more on the purity.The histamenon electrum coin has about half the gold, 40 to 50% the the histamenon solidus has 80 to 90%. The histamenon was changed in the form from ori. soldus, becoming wider and thinner, as well as concave (scyphate) in form.
I JUST CRAPPED MYSELF... that coin is AMAZING ENG...dang, you got to warn a fella before you post something that awesome. seriously, that would would be a good candidate for me to post in the "dream coin" thread.