I bought some and they are soaking. Iwas wondering if anyone else had any luck with these types of coins? :roll:
Uncleaned does mean Unexamined A couple of years ago, I worked with an eBay merchant who put lots like those out. He got them imported in the usual overseas mail from overseas. He opened them, sorted them, grouped them, made the lots equal in value, and then put them out on eBay. I helped. I had done this before with my own coins: bought a bulk lot, attributed them, 2x2ed them, and retailed them, and wholesaled what did not sell over the table at a coin show. The point is that once you see them and see them often, you do not need to clean them to identify them. Cleaning them and identifying them is a lot of fun, good learning, excellent numismatics, an edifying if not ennobling experience. I recommend it to everyone... ONCE. So-called "uncleaned" coins never contain any suprises because the dealer was not surprised and neither was the person who sold them to the dealer in the first place. Anything interesting gets sold in a different market right away. Only fool thinks that Arabs (or whoever) are idiots who let treasures slip through their fingers while we Americans are sophisticated collectors of rarities. That said, more than once, knowing all this, I too have been tempted to do it again, just for the fun of soaking them and looking them all up.
uncleaned ancient coins I have a friend that's really into these uncleaned coin lots.Most are common types and base metal,but he's found one debased gold coin in his cleaning frenzy and he's having alot of fun doing it! ~ Jim http://groups.msn.com/ErrorWorld/_whatsnew.msnw
I love getting my belt-sander and cleaning the coins. :lol: Seiously though, I have never tried it. Cameron Kiefer
Aurem non olet laz wrote: "I have a friend that's really into these uncleaned coin lots.Most are common types and base metal,but he's found one debased gold coin in his cleaning frenzy and he's having alot of fun doing it! ~ Jim I guess I would like to know more about that. I just finished writing an article for The Celator about electrum. Gold was never debased, in the usual sense we mean today, of having a 50% gold-copper coin. Gold would be mixed with silver to make electrum, down to 25%gold and 75% silver (actually over 70% with copper at about 3%) The Romans were not big on this. One Roman tributary in the Bosporos issued coins with Alexander Serverus on them. But the Roman emperors used gold for international transactions and debasing the gold did them no good. Metals like orichulcum ("brass" or "gold-bronze") look like gold and have some weight to them and were used in the Roman empire. Do you know any more about your friend's "debased gold" coin?
