I started working on the photos of the new coins I got at the show Friday. This is the best condition of the coins but the original photo did a poor job capturing the surfaces so this post was edited with a reshoot. I see this as a coin that will get shot several times before I get it right. Some coins have all the luck. Constantius II is a common ruler but this young kid got to dress up for a special portrait for this coin. The reverse legend is supposed to read BEATA TRANQUILITAS but some dies were made missing a few letters and the product of the London mint has been studied in depth to the point that this variety made it into RIC as #287 on page 115 of volume VII. There are many errors in legends on ancients but not all get into the standard catalogs. This one is not an error but a variety that takes several pages to list in all its forms so my tired eyes originally listed it as something rare when it is not. One letter here or there makes the difference between very rare and very common in the catalogs. Many English collectors specialize in London mint coins so they are popular and usually a bit higher priced than other mints. The selling dealer thought the coin was nice enough to be worth twice the price he was asking for for ordinary high grade Constantinian copper. I agreed. It is a pretty coin.
How do they find these so perfect like this...is there a good technique as to cleaning ancientsto remove all dirt?
Such coins probably spent the last 1700 years in a pot rather than loose in the soil. They may have been in a bag full of similar items with the outer layer of coins corroded but the ones in the center in better shape due to the protection of their unfortunate brothers. I was once told that there are people in the regions where uncleaned coins are found that can tell what is inside a lump of dirt. Some kinds of dirt are easier on coins than others; some coins poke out from their dirt enough that you can tell they will be easily cleaned. You see sellers of uncleaned coins claiming that the coins are not sorted but that just means they did not sort them. If you are the finder and you find something nicer than average, do you really think you would put it in the same bag you will sell for under a penny apiece? I'll also mention that I do not know how to clean coins but there are people working at the British museum who do so I suspect there are independent contractors out there that also know how to good work given the coins that appear to be worth the effort. Ancient coins are very, very common. Nice ones are less common. Coins like this found in an average eBay lot would mean someone made a mistake in the sorting. We all have to ask ourselves if we would rather have one $30 coin, two $15 coins or 30 lumps of dirt that may or may not have a nice coin inside. Uncleaned lots are for people whose hobby is the thrill of the search and some will the dirty coin lottery and get something nice. They also get a few hundred/thousand lesser items. I looked at well over a thousand coins Friday and was offered a small bag of about 30 uncleaned but partially viable late Romans for $8. I passed. That is not my hobby.
Indeed, it looks very nice. I kinda figure it was mostly popularity that made London mint coin higher, but are they any more or less scarce than other mint (in general)?
That is really hard to tell. They are more popular and dealer often carry stock more likely to sell so it is easier to find a London that it is a specific other mint (except, perhaps, the really common ones like Siscia or Thessalonica). I believe any price bump is from their popularity rather than their rarity.
