So this was one of the surprises I found in a group of big uncleaned coins from DOC. It looks burned or charred somehow. This coin was completely black and thickly encrusted when I first got it. I can only make out some of the letters. Here's what I entered in OCRE: Obverse-impcaes*om*avg* Reverse-*vgvsti This is the only link I get http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.2_1(2).dom.116 Here's the measurements. Thickness:2-2.5mm Width:28mm Weight:12.3-12.7grams So with all this I'm waiting on a gold testing kit, but if you would help me crush this delusion or reaffirm it, that would be appreciated. P.S. If this turns out to be a genuine gold coin, what would you pros recommend for cleaning it off? I've been soaking it in 35% Hydrogen peroxide, but now it seems like nothing else is coming off, and I don't want to scrape it anymore.
Figures, never seen bronze look that golden on these uncleaned coins before. So what is this coin then?
Some coins were minted in very brassy alloys and will look gold when you get down to raw metal. The easiest way to know it isn't gold is that it's corroded and has a patina that is so difficult to remove(aside from the fact you found it in an uncleaned lot - you will not find gold). The high purity gold used in Roman aurei of this era would not corrode, nor will it develop any sort of difficult to remove patina.
BTW, orichalcum is an alloy of copper and zinc. Coins were made of this alloy to distinguish them from the bronze coins (asses) of similar size. A dupondius (your coin) was worth two asses. Many sestertii were also made of orichalcum.
"Orichalcum" means "gold-like", because it had that shinny yellow look. That´s what you have in a dupondius.
Its also worth noting that SC implies that the coin's face value exceeds its metal value, thus approval from the Senare (Senatus consultum) is required. This sometimes appeared on Republican denarii, and appears on all non-provincial bronze denominations from the time of Augustus until the final hurrah under Aurelian. Also, while it would be amazing to have a Dupondius-sized gold coin, nearly all ancient gold coins are quite small - the Greek stater, Roman aureus, and their Eastern equivalents were all about 8g and usually about the size of a US dime. Only the Ptolemies and Bactrian Greeks made circulating gold coins larger and heavier than a stater.
Imperial Rome/ Western/ Eastern Roman Empires did strike multiples of aurei/ solidi up to 10 or more. I know they call these "medallions" which is silly, since when Venice struck a 105 Zecchini/ Holy Roman Empire 100 Dukaten/ they are coins. Most of these where for presentation purposes, but it could be used as legal tender.
