Good morning, I'm new to ancient coins but not new to modern coinage. I bought an Uncleaned crusty lot off EBay several months ago and wanted to learn how to clean ancient coins. I was always a big fan of Roman antiquity and wanted to start off by learning how to clean them. I've read a lot online and on this forum, so I kind of got the gist of it. Two months of soaking in Distilled water with a weekly light scrub brought out decent results. One coin in particular was this one which the crust fell off yesterday and noticed it was silver. However the pits were all coming out and there seemed to be copper as well. I looked online and found out about fourees. I wanted to get everyone's opinion on it. I believe it's either a Julia Domna or Faustina but it's hard to tell to an untrained eye. The hair kind of gives it away a bit to the possibility of a woman. The weight is at 4 grams and the size is 18-19mm. Totally different beast when in hand. I created this thread on my phone so hopefully it goes through.
Welcome to the forum. It looks like that could very well be a fouree or billon(mostly bronze mixed with silver). 15 years ago I bought bags of uncleaned by the 500 and 1000 and cleaned them. I am a little concerned about the your lot as it looks somewhat corroded. Identification may me difficult. Do the others look this way as well? David
No, the others look more distinguishable than this one. I will post them up soon. This one caught my eye due to it having a shine but crumbling look.
Glad to hear it. This one may be a 3rd century billon coin, but it's a little out of focus. I can make out some lettering on the reverse, such as C & I.
I'm using my IPhone but I will attempt to take better photos. With all those pits, it difficult to read the letters.
I think you are on the right track. We should be able to get close with a clearer photo. Unfortunately these lots are not always fruitful. As I recall I guessed 20 to 30% of the one's I had were throw aways, being too worn or corroded to identify. Looking forward to the others.
I prefer to reserve the term fourree for coins that wwere copper in the center and slilver foil wrapped on the outside but not just copies made from low grade metals whether or not they once had a thin silver wash. 4g is too heavy for a genuine silver denarius of Julia Domna (the face I see here) and fourrees should be lighter. I believe this is a cast bronze heavily attacked by corossion and too far gone to really tell if it started as an official but low grade silver, an ancient barbarous product or an outright counterfeit. Sometimes we see things that were good style but the wrong metal which we classify as Limes denarii but I'll not go so far as to say even that this started as one of these.
I should read the whole post before replying, 4 grams is too heavy for a fourree which I also misspelled earlier. Really need more caffeine in the morning One possibility is this Julia Domna https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=891093 These are in the low 3's for a Denarius, so still a mystery, but yours is definitely an empress. Perhaps others will give their opinion.
