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<p>[QUOTE="Orange Julius, post: 8349835, member: 77226"]Uncleaned coins, as they are available these days, are tough. Many of us here started with them and they were a fantastic way to get into the hobby and learn about late roman coins. However as the years passed, the availability of unclean coins worth spending time on has dwindled. Many unclean coins available now, especially on ebay, are just someone's lost causes or culls. As the quality of unlceans is pretty bad these days, most who have collected for awhile will tell you to skip them and spend your resources on fewer better coins. I enjoyed them... so see the fun in them and still think they are a good place to learn but you have to have realistic expectations on the final outcome (common, later, usually rougher quality coins... or many times nearly featureless).</p><p><br /></p><p>All of that said, it's hard to tell from photos if you're down to the patina or if there's still material there to remove. Additionally, thickness can't be used to determine much as coinage increased and reduced in weight/thickness many times. Many later coins are very thin. Your blue box coin looks to be a Constantinian coin (BEATA TRANQVILLITAS or variation of reverse) from Lyons from around the 320s Ad. The red box coin appears to be a later coin (likely Valentinian or Valens) with likely a SECVRITAS REIPVBLICAE reverse. As this coin is much later, it will be thinner and of lower quality production. The best way to tell if there's any more work that can be done is to look at the surfaces through magnification. This is likely the reason for the lack of comments is that there is not likely much improvement that can be made and the surfaces are difficult to evaluate from these photos.</p><p><br /></p><p>We may be able to help you identify some of them with additional well-lit photos of the front and the back, if you'd like. Anyway good luck, use these as a learning opportunity but if you're looking for nicer coins in the end, it's worth buying them outright as many of these types are very affordable in good condition.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="Orange Julius, post: 8349835, member: 77226"]Uncleaned coins, as they are available these days, are tough. Many of us here started with them and they were a fantastic way to get into the hobby and learn about late roman coins. However as the years passed, the availability of unclean coins worth spending time on has dwindled. Many unclean coins available now, especially on ebay, are just someone's lost causes or culls. As the quality of unlceans is pretty bad these days, most who have collected for awhile will tell you to skip them and spend your resources on fewer better coins. I enjoyed them... so see the fun in them and still think they are a good place to learn but you have to have realistic expectations on the final outcome (common, later, usually rougher quality coins... or many times nearly featureless). All of that said, it's hard to tell from photos if you're down to the patina or if there's still material there to remove. Additionally, thickness can't be used to determine much as coinage increased and reduced in weight/thickness many times. Many later coins are very thin. Your blue box coin looks to be a Constantinian coin (BEATA TRANQVILLITAS or variation of reverse) from Lyons from around the 320s Ad. The red box coin appears to be a later coin (likely Valentinian or Valens) with likely a SECVRITAS REIPVBLICAE reverse. As this coin is much later, it will be thinner and of lower quality production. The best way to tell if there's any more work that can be done is to look at the surfaces through magnification. This is likely the reason for the lack of comments is that there is not likely much improvement that can be made and the surfaces are difficult to evaluate from these photos. We may be able to help you identify some of them with additional well-lit photos of the front and the back, if you'd like. Anyway good luck, use these as a learning opportunity but if you're looking for nicer coins in the end, it's worth buying them outright as many of these types are very affordable in good condition.[/QUOTE]
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