Hi guys, I recently bought a load of uncleaned ancients and there are a few that have come out of soaking looking in pretty bad shape and I just cant ID them. I hate putting away a coin not being able to put some sort of ID on it (unless its really blank). I wouldn't be surprised if no one can make them out but here they are: I'm pretty sure this coin is of 3 emperors, possibly Arcadius. But the thing that has me puzzled is that I'm sure the man on the left is holding a bow? And under the middle man there seems to be a very faint worn star shape. I just can't seem to ID this, maybe i'm completely off and it isn't 3 emperor's or that isn't a bow he's holding. Next is a god knows what. There is some legend left of the obverse but it's warped and I cant make it out. On the reverse I can't make out whatever it is so I don't even know if the picture is the right way round. I was thinking it could be a man/hunter holding up an animal by it's legs? And lastly I thought this was interesting due to it's square shape. Was this coin made to be square or is it just in reallllly bad shape? There is most of someone's head on the obverse (sorry that picture is a bit dark, he's wearing some sort of spiked helmet/diadem) and not much on the reverse. I'll give a cookie to anyone that can even make anything out with this. I don't expect any miracles here but if anyone can give me even a bit of info on any of these that'd be great!
The three emperors type was also issued by Honorius, but there's no telling who issued your coin without an obverse legend. The emperors on the right and left have outer arms resting on shields, inner arms holding spears. Sometimes, when coins are in very low grades, the corrosion creates the illusion of devices that aren't really there. I can't make anything out on the other two coins.
Good effort (I've never tried to clean ancient coins ... man, it looks like you'd need far too much patience)
haha yeah, some can take months to clean... But I have had a lot of really nice coins come out that I practically paid around $1 for.
It's a different hobby altogether. You have to enjoy the cleaning process. What little I tried of it left me cold, precisely because you get so many of these unidentifiable culls. But maybe I just got a bad batch.
I'd say out of my batches I get around 50% unidentifiable/culls, 25% identifiable but not great and about 25% nice ones. It really depends on where and who you get your coins from.
Coin 2 reverse is upside down. Its someone leading/dragging a captive, possibly Gratian/Valens/Valentinian..etc Coin 3 could be anything, but its likely a Gallic issue.
Ah yeah I can see that too I might make another topic soon showing some good coins that came out of uncleaned lots
