What to do with junk?

Last year for Christmas, Mrs. FF gifted me a little over 100 uncleaned ancients since I was just getting into them. FFIVN and I soaked and scrubbed and cleaned up several fairly nice LRBs. The rest that were too crusty have been sitting in distilled water and received an occasional light scrub to see what, if any, could be removed. These containers of coins have been sitting on the counter of the main floor bathroom for the last year.

Finally, she requested her counter space back and our little cleaning experiment was ready to come to an end. Today, FFIVN's little sister and I gave them one last scrub and then dried them off. FFIVN would've joined in but he is busy designing his Pinewood Derby car.

Anyways, there were a few more that are probably identifiable out of the group and the rest are basically junk. Over the year, most of the cleaned coins that were in decent shape were identified and then gifted out to boys in FFIVN's Cub Scout den, a few people at my work who showed an interest, as well as to a few people here on the forum.

Now we are left with the culls and I'm not sure what to do with them. Some have identifiable obverses or reverses but are not in good enough shape to give out IMO.

What wold you all do with them?

Scrubbing the last few coins


A few identifiable coins left


The rest

 

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I have a lot of culls too - something like 900 of them. I keep them in two mayonnaise jars and rarely pull them out to look at them. I know I could just throw them away but heck, they are ancients and were so well-loved that they were worn to an almost featureless state. So gosh, that must be worth something. I probably should just keep them and gift them to a budding collector who wants a pile of old coins. There are several ultra-crusty ones that may have something underneath the crud, but I don't have the inclination to try to clean them anymore.

 

That's just it! There is still history in these junky metal disks. I can't just toss em in the trash. I just wish there was something else I could do with them.

 

You can always just toss the lot up on ebay and take a reasonable cashout from the sale

 

I'm in the same boat. I dipped my toes into ancients with some group lots of "uncleaned" coins. Uncleaned was of course a misnomer. They'd all been cleaned and deemed junk before being sold to me-- probably passing through many collectors/dealers before I got the dregs. Months and months of soaking and occasional gentle scrubbing did nothing. Maybe some could still benefit from meticulous cleaning using abrasive instruments under binocular microscope but I can't imagine that being fruitful.

So... they remain in a bag. Most are AE4 size. I don't think I should dump them on a hopeful newcomer-- that would just turn them off the hobby.

 

I'm not versed in ancient coin conservation, but at this point, would ultrasonic cleaning make a difference?

 

I have a very promising student studying ancient Roman coins with me next semester (He’ll focus on Constantine but receive a sound basic education in the fundamentals, too). I have many coins for him to use and I have given him a few decent ones, but I’m sure he’d love whatever anyone wishes to send, assuming there is a little detail. PM me if you’re interested in contributing.

 

On these? Probably not.

 

When my stuff gets here and I find the box the uncleaned coins went into, I'll send them to you. Probably the end of January . Some of them are probably somewhat identifiable so maybe it will be fun for your student.

 

Thanks, TIF! He will really appreciate them and is a very promising student.

 

I have been thinking of making some custom “toys” with ancient culls. Like carding the up the way Star Wars figures were. I’ll happily take a few if anyone wants to get rid of them!

 

Buy an ancient Roman jar or amphora and bury them in your backyard. That should confuse someone 1,000 years from now.

 

Some coins are so far gone that they are best used to win a contest at school for who brings in the oldest thing. The secret is finding the teacher who would think that is cool and not a silly bother. Scouts? Same thing. While your standards are higher than these, there may be people you can help just by keeping them from buying similar items. I still have a few garbage level coins I wasted a couple dollars on in the late 50's and have no use for uncleaneds whatsoever. These will not improve with cleaning. They may be impossible to ID beyond 'coin---I hope'. I agree that throwing them out is more than I can do so I give then to people who will probably do it for me in the hope that they serve some purpose to someone. Do Pinewood Derby cars get ballast?

 

During my teenage years, I received lots of coins as gifts. As, I got older and much wiser, I upgraded all of them, sent the "unwanted" ones to Stacks/Bowers to put up for auction. I ended up winning a prize coin, used the money realized from auction, to pay for it. All's well that ends well

 

You can always melt them down like they used to do back in the good old days

 

The one good thing that came from these coins is that it helped pique our interest in ancients and lead us down the path of the "dark side".
The car will definitely need some weight added to it but that will be done in the form of lead weights attached to the bottom. Gotta make it fast and sleek. I'm not sure this will win speed-wise but FFIVN is shooting for "Most Creative" this year.
Maybe next year I can build a "dad's car" and cover it in all the junk ancients haha.

 

I have some uncleans that I have cleaned that came out OK, and a bunch that didn't need cleaning. If you are interested I can send some to you. Representative emperors include Constantine, VRBS ROMA,Constantius II, Valentinian, and Arcadius, among others.

 

You'd be surprised what you can get for culls on ebay. Late last summer I bought a bulk 250 coin lot from a Triskeles auction, picked out the ~5 keepers, and posted the rest on ebay... ended up about $75 ahead after fees and everything.

If you don't want them, sell them and use the money to get a nice coin you will enjoy.

 

I would feel horrible if people paid money for what is left.

 

Yes, absolutely. He will cherish all of them.