Hi, where would be the best website to buy uncleaned coins? I'm aware that it is unlikely to find anything of value but it does seem like to fun to clean and try to identify the coins... Thanks! Bill
Bill, There are many good sellers of uncleaned coins on Ebay. Unfortunately there are a lot of bad ones. When I started on ancients, I was lured by uncleaned coins, but found out it was too much work for me lol. One good rule of thumb is to try to buy groups that you get exactly what you are seeing. Do not buy 20 of a group, unless you have bought from the dealer before and know what he sells. You are much, much, MUCH better off to get fewer nice coins than a whole bunch of crap. Ancient coins were stored everywhere, and as a result many come out of the ground in nice condition, while others come out as basically valueless dregs. These coins will always be valueless. Either buy a small group of better uncleaned coins that you can see good details, or buy groups of already cleaned coins for you to ID. ID'ing Roman coins is hard enough to start with, you don't want the hassle of trying to ID a coin in fair or poor condition.
I rather like Common Bronze. I've gotten some rather nice Romans out of their Spanish Uncleaned coins, and they offer unusual things like Arabic and Medieval uncleaned coins as well. Those can be a nice change of pace.
And start soaking a new lot every month or so. That way after one lot has finished soaking for a month or more, you'll have some more ready soon.
