What's your favorite color/type of AE patina?

Wow, Octavius!

There certainly are some nice coins in this thread.

Going through some forgotten coins, I found:


The second one's silver, but I bought this years ago because it was an interesting uncleaned.

They're decrepit, compared to some on this thread, but the Nero's fairly decent and a completely forgotten coin.

 

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Drat, I forgot about Tiber patina.

Question; were all legit 'Tiber' patinas coins found in various rivers?

All of Octavius' coins are splendid. I'm really partial to Nero's Lugdunum mint, because of the fatter portrait. It might not have been as 'realistic' as Rome, but it's certainly more of how one imagined Nero to look.

I also like the blue coin - the reply window doesn't allow me to pan up the thread to credit the poster.

 

While surfing through some coin dealers last night, I did notice the faux desert patinas from a couple of vcoins dealers. What percentage of desert patinas are fake?

I remember as a dumb teen, getting some dirt from the patio garden and sprinkling them on a couple of junk box Heraclius's. The intent wasn't to deceive, just to highlight, and the dirt could be brushed off. I don't think it led to any bd.

 

I voted "brown," but I know that shows my ignorance, and it's the main reason why I seldom buy Roman coins in copper. Here's my best looking one. It is an AS of Claudius. As an U.S. collector for over 60 years, I can't get used to green copper. It bugs me.

 

That's cool.

I did come across an orange Gordian III, presumably a Balkan provincial, while flipping through coins. Still working on coin photography.

Around 2009, I got smart enough to save the listings of virtually any coin purchased online. Both as a receipt, for the description, and the picture.

 

I haven't shared this bit of nonsense in a while - the top photo shows an Antoninus Pius sestertius I bought from eBay. "What a brilliant, unusual blue patina!" I said to myself, bidding on it.

After I got it home I was admiring it and noticed it got sticky as it warmed up in my hand. A bit of hand sanitizer and its true colors were revealed - stripped down to the bare brass, it had been painted! With, like, actual paint (bottom "after" photo).

Well, it is a rather scarce 'slow quadriga' type and the price was reasonable... I still kind of miss the blue though (note I left a little bit in the fissures and declivities, as a record of its historical journey paint-job)


Antoninus Pius Æ Sestertius
(145-147 A.D.)
Rome Mint
ANTONINVS AVG [PIVS PP TR P], laureate head right / Antoninus in slow quadriga right, eagle-tipped scepter in left hand, reins in right hand, [COS IIII] / [S C] in exergue.
RIC 766; Sear 1257.
(24.60 grams / 30 mm)
eBay May 2018 $12.06

 

Several of the "blue" patinas with deposits of azurite ...
Ae from Tuder
RR aes grave.. Triens and semis.
also a RR aes grave quadrans with yellow patina...

 

Whoa, those blues!!

I'm in agreement there (that Aes at the end looks beautiful). My first Sestertius (purchased in Rome, possibly Florence or Paris in the 1980s) had a nice Tiber tone to it, though I may have spoiled it while aggressively treating for bronze disease about 10 or 15 years ago, but no recurrence whatsoever (it lost some metal around 9h-to-11h-obv while in the safety deposit box unchecked a few years):

Clamshell Green is always nice:

Even if a little rough:


But here are just a few favorites on some Thessaly, Phalanna AE from a BCD group in green, black, and multi-color:

 

OH! Can't believe I forgot this one. Probably my favorite patina of all, especially the obverse, very hard smooth gray. A Micipsa/Massinissa from Numidia, perhaps one of the ones with high lead content

North Africa. Kings of Numidia, Massinissa or Micipsa. Leaded AE Obol (26mm, 13.6g, 12h). Ca. 203 – 138 BC.
Obverse: Laureate, bearded male head facing left. (King Massinissa or Micipsa?) Beaded border.
Reverse: Horse galloping left. Punic letters “MN” (pellet behind horse?).
Ref: cf. SNG Copenhage 518; Sear 6596-7. Possible unusual variant (placement of control symbol on the reverse die).
Prov: Ex-Specialty Coin (Gary Dayton, Champaign), c. 2012-15; reportedly from Drayton's original ancient coin inventory purchased from Curtis Clay at Harlan J Berk, Ltd., in a very large group lot (some time before 2010, perhaps much before). Possibly at a CICF show.

 

Sorry multiple posts. It's not that great an avatar.

 

X

 

Green (or better, cyan, but it's difficult to find a cyan patina) being my favorite color I love green patinas.
One of the coins I wanted badly and was happy to win it at a reasonable price


Same situation





The most spectacular patina I have in my collection is not something uncommon, but still amazed me.



First coin from the first page of my collection

 

That's like asking me to choose which child is my favorite!

Moreso than color, what really draws me to an AE is surface integrity - free of corrosion, major deposits, etc.

Some of my favorite AE patinas -

Jet black (preferably matte, not that shiny black sometimes seen in LRBs)



Brown


Red/brown



Green



Turquoise (this is a rare color to find, and I believe I read somewhere that this color can sometimes be attributed to burial near an erm, decomposing body)


Desert/brown


Desert/green

 

I noticed that four people have voted "Apple / Vivid Green." I thought that color was an indication of big trouble. The corrosion was still active and chewing away on the coin.

 

Bronze disease is a toothpaste green color.

 

Here's one my coins of Victorinus (with Marius features), which appears to (somehow) have some lustre. It was quite hard to get a good photo of that shows the surface off (coin is slightly less red but more shiny in hand). I don't think it's been overcleaned


Glossy brown is also nice on my brockage ant of Gallienus


I'm also a fan of black glossy coins


And green is nice too

 

And usually quite powdery, a sure sign of active corrosion.

 

I will have to get a tube of green toothpaste to learn about what is dangerous.