Can anyone explain the colour of this coin? A friend sent it to me to look at. In the shade it is a definite brown colour. If you tilt it in the light, it shines silver. Should the "brown" be removed?
The coin may be lead which can take on a brown color like that. Is it soft? What is the weight? I would not clean it in any event since the loss of detail would be worse than any improvement in appearance.
Sorry I should have posted the dimensions. 16mm 2.44g. It is not leaving a "pencil" mark if I rub the edge on paper.
Item 351465533454 at 17 mm and 2.86 gm is for sale on ebay at the moment so the size and weight seem about right. It seems that the 'harder' the life the coin has had, the 'lighter' it gets.
If a coin has a fairly smooth patina and you light it from a sharply-oblique angle, it will always look silvery. A sharp angle limits the wavelengths hitting the camera's lens. For example, here are two images of an ant of Tetricus II. The first is the "true" color, the second is lighted by sources at sharp angles.
I read somewhere that silver can develop a brown or black patina. I haven't been able to find an example of a browned silver like this one. And it is supposed to be silver! Chrsmat, I am not sure, it doesn't look like paint or varnish, but I could be wrong. I gave it a soak for a few minutes in acetone.
My Marc Antony denarius actually has a very dark brown patina as well. I know these were made with something like 80% purity silver and Caesar's were higher but maybe for some reason yours isn't.
