When possible I collect by patina. Are my favorite patinas, blue and aqua, found mostly in the Balkans? And what's up with Gordian and blue/aquas? It seems that most of my aqua-blues are Gordian III. Once I get my coin photography ducks in order I can photograph the misty aqua Gordian Sestertius I purchased during the 1990s. The local coin store had two with this patina; Herenni Etruscilla and Gordian. Given that I was a teenager (with a commensurate budget - the coin was 100-something) and didn't collect the wives, I didn't get H.E. What kind of conditions produce apple green (like Granny Smith apples)?
I'd be cautious about blue/green/fancy patinas from the Balkans. eBay (and probably elsewhere) is full of fakes from that area, many of them shimmering with green gem-like patinas (or paint or fingernail polish or whatever).
I think my latest one is real; it came from a very reputable dealer and the patina looks bona fide. I hope my misty aqua one of many years ago isn't a fake. Unless they were of Michaelangelo's artistic ability, my Balkans AE one is real. It would be too hard to fake it with the complex encrustation on it. Coins that I buy are almost exclusively from vcoins.
A vcoins search of "blue patina" comes up with 43 results and only 2-3 of those are what I'd call a blue patina. I quite fancy the hoard patina on that Severus II. Perhaps a more common tetrarch at a lower price will come up.
Hi Nerosmf68...In the past, I found different types of patina..But, its becoming rarer and rarer to find a coin with a beautiful patina..Artificial fertilizer, which has been widely used for the last 20-30 years, has starting to take toll on patina..A friend, who cleans coins for me, says, believe it or not, that coins have the most beautiful patina, coming from the fields that have been fertilized with manure..This is a good book on Roman bronze and patina.. https://www.vcoins.com/cn/stores/an...ivrea__very_rare_reference/43265/Default.aspx
Thanks! The manure part would make sense, given the ancient world. That's exactly the book I've been looking for... However, I'll have to wait until I find a cheaper copy. Does the artificial fertilizer affect only single finds or does it also apply to coins found in vessels?
As far as I know, has an affect only on single finds..That book is really pricey, I was lucky to borrow that book from a friend, so I copied the whole book..
I used to buy uncleaned coins from Viminacium, Moesia. They usually had that blue/turqose patina that you like. I think the soil there increases the chance of that kind of patina. The Viminacium coins used to be 3-4 dollars, so I’m pretty sure they were genuine.
When it comes to blue patina, beware of the highly artificial, chemically-achieved blue patina found on many of the Roman silver coins sold by Athena Numismatics -- a Canadian dealer -- on VCoins. Just do a search for some of my posts with "Athena," "patina," and "blue" or "blueish," and you'll find some examples.
Athena recently put up a large number of new LRB's on VCoins. Many of them are very nice, except for the fact that by a remarkable coincidence, the ones that aren't orange all seem to be the exact same shade of greenish-yellow. So he does offer more than one color of bronze coin! More seriously, it's quite annoying to see this dealer ruin so many otherwise nice coins.
green (malachite) and blue (azurite) are both copper carbonates. A book I like on the subject of bronze patinas and corrosion is -- Copper and Bronze in Art: Corrosion, Colorants, Conservation by David Scott "Both malachite and azurite form as corrosion products principally when copper alloy comes into contact with soil waters or with water formed with surface condensation and charged with carbon dioxide." pg 108 there is a lot more...but I don't want to ruin the suspense.
This guy came from the balkans, as I understand. Probably real, considering the destruction of the obverse.
So much of the color of a coin depends on lighting when photographed. With flash: Without flash, which is much closer to the coin's actual color:
