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Message:: [QUOTE="Roman Collector, post: 7700106, member: 75937"][USER=116907]@Mammothtooth[/USER] -- It's important to evaluate a coin in terms of its historical context. By the reign of Trajan Decius, the "silver" coins had become very debased, to about 1/3 silver and 2/3 base metal. The various mints (Rome and Antioch) were cranking these things out as fast as they could to pay for military campaigns against the Persians. They used the dies -- especially the reverse dies -- longer than they should have and they became worn. The coins may not have looked all that good when they left the mint in the first place. Over the course of being buried -- or chemically cleaned after finding them -- some of the metal may leach out of the coin, leaving a porous or grainy surface. These coins are typically found in the condition of your example: porous and with soft details on the reverses. Your Trajan Decius coin is fairly typical of the coins of the mid third century. Things got even worse under Trebonianus Gallus who followed him. While there are spectacularly preserved coins of Decius to be had -- as Doug notes -- there's a lot of interesting things about your coin. It illustrates well what was going on with the Roman empire at the time -- it illustrates this even better than a pristine example. Just don't pay more than you should for a workaday coin.[/QUOTE]